Chocolate Lollipops

Around Christmas, we bought some fancy chocolate from a chocolatier, and Doug made dipped pretzels that were absolutely delicious. So encouraged were we by this exciting chocolate development that we've since made a few batches of chocolate lollipops. We took our cue from Ina Garten on this one, and boy, was it a good decision.

The only problem with these is that they're not the size of my head.

Chocolate Lollipops

3 c. good quality chocolate morsels (we used Chuao) -- don't use chips--they don't melt well
Chopped nuts
Chopped dried fruit
Lollipop sticks
Cellophane bags and ties

Feel free to make this with dark, milk, or white chocolate. We prefer dark and white so usually go with those. Melt the chocolate in 30 second microwave intervals. If you're using good melting chocolate, this should be easy to do within a minute and a half. If you try this with chips, you'll probably get a dry, goopy mess. You're going for a silky, satiny texture with the chocolate. Higher quality is always better here--I say, better to have fewer lollipops that all taste delicious than more that taste like cheap chocolate. Right?

While the chocolate is still warm, use a spoon to drop it into disc shapes on a wax-paper lined cookie sheet. Twirl the stick in the base of each disc while the chocolate is still warm. Working quickly, drop your choice of dried nuts and fruits onto each disc. My favorite is pistachio with dried cranberries or cherries. White chocolate is great with dried blueberries and macadamia nuts. Cashews and dried apricots are good on either. We prefer salted nuts to raw ones, but it's up to you. Then place lollipops in freezer to set.

After about 45 minutes, pull each lollipop out and wrap individually in bag with a tie. I got the sticks, bags, and ties back at a cake shop several years ago and still have them leftover. You could probably find them there or at Michaels. What we love about these is how impressive they look once they're done. We store ours in the freezer and pull out for company. Not really. They don't last that long.

This recipe could make you 10-15 pops, depending on how big you make yours. Enjoy!