Homemade Gift Idea: Magic Spoon with Magic Powder

 Whether it’s for a teacher, co-worker, or all the nieces and nephews, I have an easy, homemade, magical gift idea.

A Mug of Christmas Magic!

  This mug contains a magic spoon, magic powder, candy cane, and a chocolate dipped Oreo cookie!

A magic spoon is a spoon used to stir your hot cocoa, and a marshmallow will magically appear!

To make a magic spoon, take a heavy duty plastic spoon, and scoop up some marshmallow cream,

Dip your spoonful of cream into melted white chocolate and sprinkle with holiday sprinkles.

Now you’ll want to wrap it before packaging it up. I used the corner of a sandwich bag and tied it with some curling ribbon.

After you have dipped your magic spoons, dip a few Oreo cookies. I wanted to get the holiday Oreo cookies. You know the ones, with the red cream in the middle? I couldn’t find any, so I used regular Oreos.

Don't forget to sprinkle the dipped cookies with a little holiday cheer too. And try not to eat the gift components while dipping. Not that I did or anything. That one above? Broke! ;)  Really! It did!

Now wrap up the cookie and tie it to the handle of the mug. Look how cute that is!

Now for the magic powder!

The magic powder is a simple hot cocoa mix. You can make your own with one of the following recipes below, or you can buy some commercial mix. Your choice! I think Costco had a big canister of the mix last time I was there. Or you could  use individual packaged cocoa. You can find those everywhere this time of year.

I found these cool snowflakes at Rite Aid. They are great for decorating cookies, cakes, or magic powder! Want a closer look?

They are actually made of wafer paper. Slightly sweet, they really don't have much of a taste. I bought  bags of these cute little snowflakes! I can think of many uses. I added 3 snowflakes to each cocoa bag.

Now measure the mix into individual serving sizes. See how I bagged the mix in the corner of a baggie. Tie it up with a twist tie or use some curling ribbon. Then trim off the zipper part and the excess plastic. The one on your left is not trimmed yet. The one on the right is trimmed and ready to package.

Now stuff the magic powder and the magic spoon in the Christmas mug that you tied the cookie to. Don’t forget a candy cane.You might wad up a piece of tissue paper and put it in the bottom of the mug to help position the spoon and lift the powder up a bit. It’s all in the presentation folks. Pretty it up!

Now that it’s all wrapped up, you need some instructions to tie on  it.

Tell me how this looks. Sound OK?

Here’s the magic powder hitting the mug of hot water. Looks pretty festive, yes?

After stirring with the magic spoon, I got a marshmallow!

 This IS truly magical!

OH! Don't forget to eat your cookie!

Recipe #1

Alton Browns Hot Cocoa

By Alton Brown

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
• 2 1/2 cups powdered milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper, or more to taste (optional)
• Hot water

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate evenly. In a small pot, heat 4 to 6 cups of water.

Fill your mug half full with the mixture and pour in hot water. Stir to combine. Seal the rest in an airtight container, keeps indefinitely in the pantry. This also works great with warm milk.

Recipe #2

Best Hot Cocoa Mix

Found at Family Fun

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients

• 2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

• 1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup powdered nondairy creamer
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Measure all of the ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk them until they are evenly blended.

2. Store the mix in a tightly covered container at room temperature until you're ready to package it. Makes about 4 cups of mix.

3. Spoon 3 or 4 generous tablespoons of cocoa mix into your cup (depending on the size), add boiling water, and stir well."

Recipe #3

Hot Chocolate Mix

(Printable Recipe)

• 1 vanilla bean
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 pounds high-quality semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 4 1/2 oz dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 cups Dutch process cocoa

Split and scrape vanilla bean and place in a large bowl or jar with the sugar. Work seeds into the sugar with your fingers. Bury the pods under the sugar. Cover tightly and let stand overnight (or up to months–vanilla sugar keeps forever) at room temperature.

In a food processor fitted with metal blade, process semisweet chocolate and dark chocolate until finely ground, using 4-second pulses. Process in batches, if necessary

Remove pod from sugar. Add ground chocolate and cocoa powder to sugar and whisk to blend, making sure to combine well. Store mix airtight at room temperature for up to six months.

Yields: 38 2-Tbsp servings, or 6 3/4-cup servings Adapted from: Gourmet,