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Hot chocolate bombs certainly made a splash (pun intended!) in 2020.
Easily one of the biggest food trends of the holiday season, images of hot chocolate bombs flooded social media—everything from moms melting chocolate chips to make a simple DIY version with their kids, to fancy, high-end hot chocolate bombs like these drinking chocolate snowmen made by chocolatier Kate Weiser and sold at Neiman Marcus.
After seeing these cocoa confections just about everywhere, I decided to get into the hot chocolate bomb game myself. I made and sold handmade hot chocolate bombs to friends and family and donating the proceeds to a worthy cause.
Choosing a Charity
The non-profit I chose, World Central Kitchen, dedicates itself to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters. During the pandemic, World Central Kitchen launched the #ChefsForAmerica Covid relief effort. This effort included the purchase of over 35 million meals from 2500 restaurants in more than 400 cities. WCK then delivered those meals directly to Americans in need of assistance.
With many of my chef classmates and colleagues currently unemployed or on furlough due to the devastating impact of the pandemic on the restaurant industry, World Central Kitchen promotes a mission very close to my own heart.
Chocolate Bomb Combos
I offered my hot chocolate bombs in five flavor combinations: salted caramel, ruby raspberry, classic dark chocolate, milk chocolate orange, and dark chocolate peppermint. Each bomb contained a custom hot cocoa blend.
I paired my chocolate bombs with handmade marshmallows in coordinating flavors, plus caramel stirring spoons and an assortment of hand-pulled hard candy. Although exhausting, making the hard candy was by far the best part of the project. I absolutely love sugarwork! Check out this timelapse video I made of myself pulling the mint-chocolate version of the sweets.
I couldn’t believe how many people were interested in ordering hot chocolate bombs. In fact, the response turned out to be so overwhelming that I eventually had to place a cap on orders. I hated having to turn away friends and family, but I also knew that there was a finite number of candies that I could realistically make and deliver in a timely manner!
Becky and the Chocolate Factory
Over the span of a couple of very, very long days, I produced close to 200 orders to be shipped all across the United States. In total, this included nearly 400 handcrafted hot chocolate bombs, over 20 trays of marshmallows, five varieties of hand-dipped caramel stirring spoons, and more than 16 kg / 35 lbs of hand-pulled hard candy sweets in a variety of seasonal flavors.
As a side note, I was very thankful for my tempering skills, learned at Ecole Chocolat and honed at Le Cordon Bleu London, which came in very handy for this project!
I did my best to document the entire process, from crafting each individual confection to packaging and shipping my wares:
Pulled Sugar Sweets
Making the Chocolate Bombs
Packaging the Products
Shipping Woes
Sadly, the shipping gods were not on my side for this project. (And I wasn’t alone!) Most friends and family were understanding. But, I’ll admit that I felt disappointed to have worked 14-16 hours each day to produce everything and ship it to arrive at peak freshness and pay for pricey 2-day shipping, only to have many of the packages take 2-3 weeks, or longer, to arrive.
Thankfully chocolate and hard candy have a long shelf life. And, I definitely learned a few lessons about the potential pitfalls of shipping perishable items through the mail.
The End Result
In the end, I was pleased to be able to make a donation of $1000, plus a small additional amount to cover administrative fees, meaning the entire donation will go toward furthering the mission of World Central Kitchen.
To learn more about World Central Kitchen and their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic, please visit this page. And as always, you can stay up to date on my recent pastry projects by following me on Instagram at @bastecutfold.
