Chocolate Bunnies

Gryffin REALLY wanted to make chocolate bunnies, and he even had it all figured out how to do it. In his mind, all we needed was my Rapunzel Pure Organic Cocoa Powder -- 7.1 oz and some pure maple syrup. You know what, he was pretty much right, lol!

After telling him that he needed to take a 30 minute bath before I'd make the bunnies, and him taking the required bath (Phoenix too!), we went into the kitchen and found a small bowl. Into the bowl went 4 heaping forkfuls of cocoa powder, followed by a splash of maple syrup. The splash was probably about 2 spoonfuls worth, because I like mine on the not so sweet side, but I needed to add more later, and so I would advise to mix and taste until it tastes right to you. THIS IS IMPORTANT... and I didn't do it, lol!

So, after I mixed the chocolate and maple syrup, I had something akin to a thick, somewhat crumbly chocolate frosting. This would have been fine to make bunny shaped candy with, but I thought, "What if I add some cream?" I took out my bottle of cream, and added a splash. 1 spoonful? 2? Not entirely sure, but probably 2. Doesn't really matter, because after mixing, I decided to add a bit more. Another spoonful or 2. At that point, I had some seriously luscious creamy frosting... but I was going for candy, lol!

Now, had I had this frosting like consistency in a melted chocolate blend, and molds to pour it in, I would have poured it, and let it harden. It would have been almost perfect. I could have even used a small spatula to smush it into molds, since past experience tells me this will harden a bit, but I tasted it, and found out it was a little TOO much on the not so sweet side. So, I added more maple syrup, and this turned my perfect consistency into a wet mess, sigh! I told you it was important to do this first, lol!

No problem really, it's an easy fix, all it would take is to just add a tiny bit more cocoa powder, BUT I thought, "Well hell, as long as I'm making candy, why not get all fancy?"

I pulled out a bag of ground walnuts from my cupboard. It was an unopened 10 oz bag, but that didn't really matter. I sprinkled some walnut on the mix, stirred it in, and tasted, mmm! Then I sprinkled a bit more. I probably ended up with about a 4th of the bag in the bowl... and then I decided that since I had shredded coconut in my cupboard, why not use a bit of that too?

My coconut is from my health food store, and I bought like a whole pound of it out of the bulk section a while ago when it was on sale for about 2.40 a pound. It turns out that I am mildly allergic to coconut in that when I eat too much of it at once, my tongue gets a bit blistered, but other than that I'm fine. You can guess that this coconut is used sparingly though, lol!

I sprinkled on some coconut, stirred, and sprinkled a bit more. Maybe a 1/2 a cup all together, give or take. Once mixed, we all agreed that this was seriously yummy! We each took a bit of the mix, and carefully rolled it into balls. It was a bit too wet still to actually roll, and definitely too wet to form into bunnies, but who cares how they are actually shaped? They can be bunnies if we want them to be, lol!

We each ate one, and I set the rest aside to dry out a bit. This only made about a dozen dime sized balls, but we don't really need more sweets than that in this house, lol!

You know what? Next time I am going to find some mint oil or extract to add to the mix! Mmmhmm!
Enjoy and have a happy day! :-D