Today I'm sharing how to make hot chocolate marshmallow toppers with cookie cutters. 

Winter time is prime time for making hot chocolate. And the only thing better than making hot chocolate is adding sweet treats to make this quintessential winter drink even sweeter. So why not add some of your own custom marshmallow toppers made with cookie cutters?

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One way to go is to use a marshmallow sheet. I got this last Christmas at World Market. They must be popular because right now they seem to be out of stock everywhere (World Market, Amazon and Melville Candy website). You can buy marshmallow sheets on Etsy or make some yourself!  (You can use Martha Stewart's Marshmallow Snowflake recipe to make your own marshmallow sheet.)    

Before going any further I must confess that the marshmallow sheet did not fare as well as I thought it would and it was pretty hard to get a cookie cutter through it. I'm sure a new, fresh and fluffy marshmallow sheet would be much easier to use!

Lucky for me I found a bag of extra large S'moreMallows marshmallows in the pantry. Apparently they were a bit old as well and they had gotten a bit hard -- but never fear. 

All you need is a bowl of warm water and a sealed bag of stale marshmallows. Hold the bag under the water for about two minutes. Then flip the bag over and hold it under the water for another minute. It worked like a charm for me and the marshmallows were soft and ready to go! 

 You can use any cookie cutter shapes your heart desires. In my case, it just so happens that the only cookie cutter shapes I own are classic Christmas cookie cutters. I chose these particular cookie cutters because they were the right size to fit into a cocoa mug! You can always cut out bigger marshmallow shapes as part of fun dessert recipes as well as for just plain eating!  

I also used cookie cutters from this snowflake mini cookie cutter set.

Can you tell I made my marshmallow toppers over the Christmas holiday? I took advantage of some of the cute accessories from my Christmas hot cocoa bar, like this cute mug, paper straws and candy cane-stirring "spoons."

One other important factor to consider is sprinkles! Whether it's red and green sugar, chocolate chips or cinnamon drops, it's always fun to add a little bit of sumpin sumpin to your cut-out hot chocolate  marshmallow toppers. You can also use melted chocolate and/or icing to decorate them as well.

Before pushing the cookie cutters into the marshmallows, you need to spray the edges of the cookie cutters with PAM cooking spray. I've read that some people dip the cookie cutter into corn starch first. I tried that and it didn't work for me. But the PAM spray worked great. It allowed the cookie cutter to glide through the marshmallow and it was much easier to then remove the cut-out shape, as well as to get the newly shaped marshmallow out of the cookie cutter.

This is what it looked like when I pushed the cookie cutters down into the stale marshmallow sheet. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to pull them out from the sheet or get the marshmallow shapes out of the cutters in one piece. Which is why I moved on to Plan B and tried the extra large S'moremallows.

I had a much better experience with the oversized marshmallow squares. Some of my smaller cookie cutters, like this cute gingerbread man, fit right inside the square marshmallow perfectly.

 My snowflakes fit right inside the squares as well.

Look at these chubby gingerbread men!

TIP: if you want them to float on top of the cocoa, cut them in half lengthwise. (Otherwise they're too thick and tend to flip over -- like those chubby guys above.) This also doubles the number of toppers you get per marshmallow!

I am loving my Rae Dunn Jingle Bells Christmas mug. I broke down and bought myself one for Christmas.

These are just two of my many Christmas mugs. They're fun to collect and use as part of my hot cocoa bar around the holidays.

This Santa mug is also part of the collection.

 

I actually have two of them.

While the toppers tasted yummy in my hot chocolate, I really had a hard time getting a good picture to show you! This gingerbread man is looking a bit sad without a face, no? Unfortunately, the ones I put faces on toppled over into the hot chocolate before I could get a picture! (Hence how I learned to cut them in half so they'll float.)

To recap:

1. Pick out your favorite cookie cutter shape.

2. Spray the edges with PAM. 

3. Push the cookie cutter into the marshmallow sheet or extra large marshmallow just like you would push it into rolled out cookie dough.

4. Gently remove the new marshmallow shape from the cookie cutter.

5. Cut it in half lengthwise.

6. Decorate (optional) and plop into your cup of hot cocoa.

Adding customized cut out marshmallows to an otherwise ho-hum cup of cocoa can make all the difference. It's so easy to do it's kind of a no-brainer.