Dragon-Scale Hot Chocolate on a Stick

First, melt the chocolate in microwave, 30 seconds at a time and stirring after each round. When it looks mostly melted with some lumps, take it out and stir until smooth.

Next, sift in cocoa powder, confectioners sugar, salt, cinnamon and cayenne, if using. Or, you could add in a different flavoring, like peppermint at this point, if you prefer.

Then fold chocolate gently to combine all ingredients.

**At this point, the chocolate had cooled and started to harden a little, so I put it back into the microwave for 15 seconds. Make sure not to overheat if you do this.

Spoon mixture into mini-muffin tin. This filled about 8 spots on the tin for me. Tap to remove air bubbles and smooth out. Add sticks and put in freezer or refrigerator to harden. (Check periodically while waiting to harden to make sure the sticks stay upright.)

While waiting for the chocolate sticks to cool and harden, work on the dragon scale marshmallows.

Using a pair of scissors you don't mind getting sticky, snip a row of small V's around the marshmallow in alternating pattern.

Once you have your army of dragons, add a dot or stripe icing gel to each scale.

When done, slide the marshmallow onto the stick and voila:
Dragon-Scale Hot chocolate On a Stick!

To serve, heat 6-8 oz milk in a mug and drop in the stick, stirring until melted. Top with the marshmallow and enjoy!

A couple of notes:

*I definitely taste the spice but don't find it spicy. However, I do like spicy foods so you may want to adjust the level of cinnamon and cayenne to your taste

*I used a metal tin and the chocolate stuck to the sides. I put the tin on top of my toaster while warming something else and they popped out easily after a few minutes. Running a hair dryer over the bottom might have the same effect. If you have silicone tray, that might work better to start, however.

*None of the mugs in my house are so that results photo is actually about 14 oz of milk with TWO sticks melted into it. (There's only one marshmallow because I couldn't help myself and ate one while the milk was heating. Oops!)