Halloween Recipe Rush Day 3: Midnight Magic Moon Pops

Welcome to Day 3 of our Halloween Recipe Rush. Before we get started, I just wanted to say a quick "hi!" to our readers in India and Brazil. We've apparently been gaining some traction there recently. It always amuses me to read through my blog audience stats, because I honestly never thought I'd have an international audience. When I started this, I figured maybe at best I'd get a few friends reading my posts. Thanks for proving me wrong!

Tonight's recipe is specially chosen so that your children (if you have any) can pitch in and help out, and will definitely enjoy the results. Midnight Magic Moon Pops!

Ingredients:

• White Chocolate Pudding
  • I used Hershey's White Chocolate instant pudding mix, but you can totally use pre-made out of the cups or cans. You can also use vanilla if you like, but I personally prefer the chocolate, especially since it has a better coloration for this purpose.
• Mini M&M's Candy
  • You all saw what I did there. Although you could totally use Reeses Pieces. Don't ask me to come up with a witty name for that one, though.

Equipment:

• Ice Ball Mold
  • You can totally get away with nearly anything that you're willing to freeze, but the shape will be much less moon-like.
• "Sticks"
  • I wound up using some "treat sticks" that I found at my local Michaels store. Anything that will slide all the way through the hole in the ice ball maker will work, if you're using an iceball maker. I do advise testing it first, otherwise you're going to wind up with the awkward situation of all of your moon pops conjoined with the top half of the ice ball mold. Yes, I may have found this out the hard way.
• Mortar and Pestle
  • A meat mallet or rolling pin will also work well, just bag the candies first. And not in one of the cheap baggies either... it's likely to burst and spew candy bits all over the place.
• Piping Bag With Tip
  • You can use a plastic baggie minus the corner, but the piping tip makes the pudding much easier to control.

Take about a cup of Mini M&M's Candy and smash them up in the mortar & pestle (or other methods), being careful not to smash them up too small. You'll want the color bits to still be visible. Go too Hulk-smash on them, and you'll wind up with chocolate powder, which is specifically why I didn't recommend a food processor. Believe it or not, I actually had to call my Dad for help with using the mortar and pestle, because it had been so long and I apparently now suck at smashing things with it. Once you've got them smashed, gently mix them into the pudding.

With the ice ball maker open, place a few whole Mini M&M's Candy pieces. From here, you're going to load the pudding mixture into the piping bag and fill the bottom half of each ice ball to just below the "equator" of the mold. Pack a few more Mini M&M's Candy pieces in on top, being careful not to push the pudding up and over the edge of the mold.

Optimists will see this mold as half full. Pessimists will see it as
half empty. Me? I'm a realist. I see them as delicious.

Carefully seal on the top half of the ice ball mold. Make sure it's all the way on properly, otherwise you're going to wind up with Magic Saturns instead of Magic Moons. Fill the rest of the ice balls up through the hole in the top, using the piping bag. Once you think you have them full, channel your inner paint shaker and gently vibrate the ice ball molds for about a minute, ideally making sure you gently tap it against your work surface each time. You'll notice that this will force the pudding to settle, and you'll have to "top off" the ice cavities.

Place your "sticks" in through the hole in the top of the mold, and pop the whole operation into the freezer over night. Don't get impatient and start squeezing the pops to see if they're done... that causes them to become misshapen. Yes, I'm guilty as charged. Moving along.

So I got a bit over zealous and over filled some of them. Oh well.

After they've frozen solid, all you've got to do is get the moon pops out of the mold. That's much easier said than done, I know. You'll have to gently pry all the way around the top half of the mold, being careful not to dislodge the sticks. It's totally the sticks that causes the problem here, otherwise you could just rip the top of the mold off like a wax strip. Ow... that hurts just thinking about it. Once you have the top off, the bottoms are much easier. Just gently press the bottom of each cavity upward, and the pop will come right out.

How did yours turn out? Be sure to let us know in the comments below! This week is our Halloween recipe rush, so be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to make sure you don't miss a single one.