Rocky Road Marshmallow Pops

As a little kid, rocky road ice cream was my favorite flavor.  The anticipation of biting into either a marshmallow or nuts made eating the ice cream all the more fun.  Although I am a huge fan of cake pops, I had this picture pop into my mind of marshmallow pops dipped in dark chocolate with a light sprinkle of chopped toasted almonds.  I applied the same techniques as I do to make cake pops and as a result, these rocky road marshmallow pops were born.

I also experimented with dipping each  marshmallow half way and just the tops in chocolate.  As a result I decided these pops can be made with with just a little bit of chocolate or completely covered without compromising the cuteness factor or taste.

As for the chocolate, I decided to go with a dark chocolate with 61% cacao.  I used the microwave to heat the chocolate in 30 second intervals until it was nice and smooth.  Although I used dark chocolate, you could use whatever kind you like including chocolate coating. If for some reason you needed to thin the chocolate out, you could either use a teaspoon of shortening or food grade extra virgin coconut oil.

After chopping the nuts, I dry toasted them in a skillet on high heat until fragrant.  I would recommend chopping them more finely than the picture below shows so that the bigger pieces do not pull the chocolate off before cooling.

Lollipop sticks can be purchased at craft supply stores such as Michaels or Joannes.  Cake supply stores will also carry sticks, cellophane bags, and (melting) chocolate wafers.

To make these pops, you’ll want to dip the sticks in 1/4″ in chocolate and then into a marshmallow 3/4 of the way through.  This will help the marshmallows not to slide off the stick.

Dip each  marshmallow into the chocolate until as coated as you want. 

Be sure to tap the stick several times with your finger to encourage excess chocolate to “flood” off the marshmallow.  Otherwise you’ll experience chocolate dripping everywhere.

Sprinkle each pop with chopped almonds and place them in a florist foam block.  I purchased three blocks from the Dollar Tree Store.  Worked beautifully.

As you can see, this is a true rocky road masterpiece.  I’ve probably eaten at least a dozen of these over the last couple days.  They are very addicting to say the least.

Here’s a picture of my semi-dipped pops and I love them just as much as the fully coated ones.  Aren’t they beautiful?These pops would be great for parties and favors.  I know many of you will want to know exactly how many these will make.  Depending on how much chocolate and nuts you  use, the amount of ingredients will vary. But you will get at least 36 fully coated pops with one bag of dark chocolate chips and more with partially dipped ones.

Before posting the recipe, I would like to ask you to keep Angie, also known as Bakerella, in your thoughts and prayers.  She’s been in the hospital and is very sick right now.  You can read her story here.  She’s the ultimate inspiration for pops on a stick and we want her to feel better soon so she can continue to inspire the world with her bite-sized treats.