Gift Idea: Homemade Marshmallows & Cocoa Mix

My love affair with homemade marshmallows began years ago, when my husband was in grad school, we were living in Oregon and I made a ridiculous purchase of marshmallows at Williams-Sonoma.  I still, to this day cannot believe I paid so much for those marshmallows, but they were good and I figured I would give it the o' college try (errr, grad school wife try, rather) and see about making them myself.  I did, with great success (cutting them into shapes that first year.  Trees for Christmas, hearts for Valentine's Day), and have never looked back (well, I do still look at the back of the box, when I pop into Williams-Sonoma, to see the price climb each holiday season).  Here are two recipes that will make you feel like a gift giving champ!

Find my recipe, for fluffy marshmallow perfection in a blog post 

from several years ago.  Marshmallow link.

See all those delicious flecks of vanilla bean?  Be still, my heart.

You'll see the full step by step on the old marshmallow post, but 

I cannot get over how much I love cutting huge, square marshmallows!

I bought cute little paper 'fruit' crates at the craft store (they were

labeled as food safe, FYI) and then popped the filled crate

into a clear cello bag and tied with hemp rope.  I decided I needed

to send hot chocolate with the homemade marshmallows, so I filled 

large Ball jars (they were narrow, yet rather tall...a style I had never

seen before, but am now obsessed).  To create this hot chocolate

concoction of love I put the grater attachment in my food processer

 and shaved big bars of dark chocolate (I bought the large bars

from Trader Joe's).  The shavings yielded quite a bit, but I decided

I wanted to gift more hot chocolate so I did equal parts dark chocolate

shavings, unsweetened cocoa powder, confectioner's sugar and a

pinch of sea salt. 

YUM YUM YUM!

On the back of the little label I attached to the 

hot chocolate mix, I placed the directions of

1/3 cup mix to 1 cup hot milk.

I think this is a gift that should extend well into the New Year!

Who wouldn't love to receive this from their Valentine?

xo.