How to make a DIY hot chocolate gift

Make a present special by adding a personal touch

Chocolate is everyone’s favourite gift. From boxes of chocolates to slabs of the good stuff, we’ve all experienced the joy of giving and receiving chocolate on special occasions. However, if you’re looking to give a chocolatey gift that’s a little more unusual, a DIY hot chocolate gift is a delightful option.

From luxurious salted caramel hot chocolate to warming ginger hot chocolate, we have a huge collection of delicious varieties to choose from, so whether you’re looking for a thank you gift, a Christmas stocking filler, or just want to show someone how much you care, treating them to one of our tasty hot chocolates is an ideal way to sprinkle them with some love (and sprinkle their lives with delicious cocoa).

If you want to make your gift even more special and unique, you could make a hot chocolate gift jar or bag. Fun and thoughtful, a DIY hot chocolate gift is sure to delight and we’ve created this simple guide to help you put one together.

How to make DIY hot chocolate gift jars

Can you think of anything more charming than a cute little jar filled with hot chocolate mix and sweet treats?

By creating a bespoke jar that’s to your loved one’s taste, your DIY hot chocolate gift jar is guaranteed to be filled with love – it’ll warm their heart as well as their mug.

Ingredients

First up you need to gather your yummy ingredients. The hot chocolate will be the star of the show in all of your hot chocolate jars, so browse our collection and choose which one best suits your recipient’s taste. You might want to keep things simple with a classic hot chocolate, give it a mellow twist with a vanilla-white hot chocolate, or take a walk on the dark side with some 100% dark hot chocolate. You may also like to go all out and include some luxury flavoured hot chocolate such as our hazelnut praline hot chocolate.

Once you’ve picked the perfect type of hot chocolate, the fun can really begin! Now you get to choose some hot choc accessories to accompany your gift.

Tasty hot chocolate additions

To make the hot chocolate more beautiful (and more decadent), it’s a great idea to include some grated plain chocolate to melt sprinkle on top. Available in milk, dark, and white chocolate, our solid batons would be perfect for this.

Marshmallows are the Bonnie to hot chocolate’s Clyde – the iconic hot choc topping and a must for your gift jar (make sure you get gelatin-free ones if you’re putting together a hot chocolate jar for a veggie!).

Why not crush up some candy canes to add extra sweetness, a little crunch, and some festive magic? If it’s not Christmas and you want to stay away from candy canes, you may like to crush up some other hard candy, like chocolate limes or rhubarb and custard sweets.

If your recipient has a real sweet tooth, you may also like to include some sugar, or maybe cinnamon for a warming kick. Finally, to make your gift really sparkle (both figuratively and literally), you could even include some edible glitter.

Instructions

1. Find a jar

Find a nice jar to put all your ingredients in. An old jam jar would be perfect, or if you’ve bought a lot of treats to accompany the hot chocolate, you may like to use an old coffee jar. Just make sure that you give it a good clean before filling it up and don’t worry too much about what it looks like because you’ll decorate it later.

2. Get your ingredients ready

Grate your chocolate (for ease, you may prefer to simply include some chocolate buttons), crush up your candy canes, and lay out your ingredients in front of you, ready to add to your jar.

3. Layer up

When it comes to adding your ingredients to the jar in a pretty and practical way, layering is key. Your first layer should be your grated chocolate or chocolate drops, followed by the cacao powder and any extra flavourings you want to include.

4. Add your sweet treats

Now you can pile in your sweet treats. Start with your crushed up candy canes or sweets, then fill the remaining space with fluffy marshmallows and maybe a dusting of edible glitter.

5. Decorate the jar

Another highlight of making this gift will be getting crafty with the jar. A big bow is a lovely touch and if you want to keep it chic, you could leave it at that. However, if you want to ensure that your gift really grabs attention, you could decorate it with sparkles, stickers, and anything else that takes your fancy. If you have little ones, they’ll definitely want to be involved in this part.

6. Add your instructions tag

Add an instructions tag to make sure they know how to transform their ingredients into a creamy mug of chocolatey joy. To make our hot chocolate, you simply have to whisk the powder into dairy or plant milk and heat it up, or use our Velvetiser hot chocolate station for the ultimate in decadent drinking. Write the method clearly in felt tip or gel pen, and maybe decorate the tag with some cute doodles and bright colours.

DIY hot chocolate gift bag

If you think a homemade hot chocolate gift sounds like the sort of thing you’d like to put together but want to give something a little bigger than a jar, you may like to make a DIY hot chocolate gift bag instead.

A hot chocolate gift bag is also a thoughtful and unusual gift, and is especially perfect if you want to give your recipient some extra goodies to enjoy with their hot cocoa.

What you’ll need

Just like with hot chocolate jars, to make a hot chocolate gift bag, you’ll need some delicious hot chocolate, like our milky hot chocolate or Black Forest Gateau hot chocolate, some chocolate buttons, some sweets, some marshmallows, and, of course, a bag to put it all in.

Putting it all in a bag instead of a jar gives you more room to play with, allowing you to pick out some lovely extra treats to accompany a nice mug of

. Everyone knows that biscuits are the perfect companions to hot drinks, so you could fill the bag with some of our luxurious biscuit options. Or, some chocolate-covered fruit would be a delicious way to complement a steaming mug of cocoa.

If you really want to stick with the homemade theme, you could bake your own cookies (our dark chocolate with ginger buttons are perfect for baking) but if you don’t have time, store-bought will be just as tasty and a lot less hassle. Our dunking biscuits selection box would be a great choice because they’re ideal for dunking.

You may also like to spoil your loved one by including a new mug to drink their hot chocolate from. Nobody can ever have enough mugs, so you really can’t go wrong by including one.

How to make your bag

The content of the gift will take centre stage, but choosing a beautiful bag to put it all in will make it even more impressive. Try choosing a bag that matches the hot chocolate – think black and chic for dark hot chocolate, green for mint chocolate, and so on. Once you’ve found the perfect bag, place your hot chocolate and treats carefully inside and write down some instructions on how to best enjoy all the goodies.

Voila, your bag is finished and now the only thing left to do is look forward to giving your thoughtful gift and seeing your loved one’s face light up.