Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Hershey's Chocolate Haunted House Tutorial

This post is sponsored by Global Influence, product provided by The Hershey Company; however, all ideas, opinions, and content are my own.
Don't forget to pin this! 

This is seriously some of the most fun that I've had working on a sponsored post. Hershey's sent me a box of chocolate and asked me to do something Halloween inspired with it. Those are all of the directions that they gave me. As first, I was a little overwhelmed with everything that I could potentially do with the candy, but then I started sketching out ideas on paper, and decided to go with this one.

Hey, if Christmas can have gingerbread houses, then Halloween should have chocolate houses, right? Right!

This Chocolate Haunted House makes an awesome center piece for a Halloween party or really any place where you have a reason to take chocolate. So fun!

What you will need:
  • 11 Full Size Hershey's Bars
  • 50 Snack Size KitKats (or 2 bags of the snack size KitKat bars, if that's easier!)
  • 4 Snack Size York Peppermint Patties
  • 40 Mini Reece's Peanut Butter Cups (or 1 bag of individual packages of Mini Reece's Peanut Butter Cups)
  • 4 Rolos
  • 4 Hershey's Kisses
  • Bag of Chocolate Chips
  • Candy Melts in Brown, Orange, and Green
  • Vegetable Shortening
  • Wax Paper
  • Freezer Bags
  • Toothpicks
  • Scissors

Just a note: This project calls for microwaving candy melts with a bit of vegetable shortening. The shortening thins our the candy melts so that they are easier to pipe. Periodically, you will need to rewarm the candy melts in the bags as they harden. I use freezer bags because they have thicker walls and hold up better to hot candy. I also do not use any cake decorating tips because they are metal and can't go in the microwave. You should be able to do all of the decorating by simply snipping the corner of the freezer bag.

Additionally, since this project is made using chocolate, the less you handle it, the better!

Line two large pans with wax paper. We are going to start by making the walls of our house.
In a freezer bag, microwave a handful of brown candy melts with a small amount of vegetable shortening. Check the bag every 30 seconds. As soon as the chocolate has melted, squish the chocolate and shortening to mix it together. Snip the very tip of a corner off. Now you are ready to start "gluing!"

Squeeze a bit of the candy melts along the edge of one bar. Place the edge of the second bar up against the edge of the first one on the wax covered pans.
Use your finger to smooth the edge and remove any extra brown candy melts. When this side has set, flip it over, and fill in any missed spots on the other side to reinforce your wall. Repeat for the remaining walls.
Take your three remaining full-sized chocolate bars, and place them on a separate wax paper covered pan. In a small dish, melt a few orange candy melts with a bit of vegetable shortening. This part doesn't take much, so no need to melt a ton!

Use the pad of your index finger to create tiles on the roof. Dip your finger in the melted orange candy for each tile. Overlap the rows a bit on two bars so that it looks like a real roof. On the third bar, do two rows facing each direction so that it looks like the middle portion of your roof.
Your walls should be set by this point. Using two separate freezer bags, melt orange and green candy melts with shortening. Decorate your walls to look like a haunted house. For my house, I decided to make the front and back look the same with a green door, and weepy drapes in the windows. The two sides each have a monster peering through the blinds. (I used candy eyes although you can do the same with white candy melts.)
As soon as your decorations are set, you can assemble your house! Using the bag with the melted chocolate, pipe along each of the edges and press together. It ends up being surprisingly sturdy!
And here I forgot to take photos of the roof being assembled, so hopefully you can follow what I did. I took two KitKats and stacked them on top of each other, using candy melts to hold them together. I attached them right above the monster, and then did the same for the other side. I then took my chocolate bar that looked like the middle of the roof and used candy melts to attach it on either end to the KitKats. The two remaining roof pieces were attached on either side. Because we used the two KitKats to elevate the middle section, the two remaining bars sloped down like a real roof.

Once you get the roof on, you will realize that there are two spots on either side that aren't covered by chocolate. Pipe orange candy melts in to fill those spots.
The easiest way to fill in the spots is to lay the house on its side (assuming everything else is dry!) I put a little wax paper on the inside of the house to hold the orange candy melts up while they were drying. It easily pulled out once they had set.
Once you are finished with that, you are done with the hard part! Melt a handful of chocolate chips in a bowl with a little vegetable shortening. Spread a thin layer on your cake board, cake plate, or whatever you want to showcase your house on. Set your house in the middle of the chocolate landscape. (Note: Chocolate chips take longer to harden than candy melts. You can finish the towers before the chocolate chips harden, but just be aware that the chocolate can still smear!)

The spooky towers are the last part of the house, and happily, one of the easiest!

Using melted chocolate to attach all of this together, stack five mini Reece's Peanut Butter Cups upside down. Attach five KitKat bars around the outside.
Take a York Peppermint Patty and cut a small notch in the side so that it fits around the corner of your house. Then repeat a second layer of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups and KitKat bars. When you finish that layer, top it with another York Peppermint Patty, then a Rolo, then a Hershey's Kiss for the top of the tower. Repeat this for all four towers.
Now for the part that really brings our haunted house to life! I went to Walmart and dug through their dollar bins to see what I could find. I ended up finding these fun plastic bat rings! I took a pair of scissors and cut away the ring portion of each bat. Then I used candy melts to attach thin craft wire to the back of each bat. When that had set, I used orange candy melts to attach each flying bat to the roof of my haunted house. Too fun!

I also found some little mummy, bat, and pumpkin figures in the dollar bin. I used candy melts to place them around my house.
For such an impressive structure, it is easy to make! Everyone who saw it thought that it was a cake, and when I told them that it was all chocolate, they were stunned. It's definitely a crowd pleaser! And if you want to make it even more fun, I'd suggest filling the house with individually wrapped candies before putting the roof on. Imagine the surprise when people find out that it's not only made of chocolate, but filled with chocolate too!

Don't forget to pin this! 
Many thanks to Global Influence and Hershey's for providing the product and compensation for this post! For more fun Halloween ideas, stop by Celebrate with Hershey's! This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.

7 comments:

  1. Wow! I've never seen anything like it. You are very creative!

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  2. Oh my goodness, that is the neatest thing! Wow! And what kid wouldn't just love a chocolate Halloween house, LOL!

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  3. Wow! I don't have a creative bone in my body. I am in awe of people like you.

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  4. This looks like SO MUCH FUN!! I don't even have kids and I'm contemplating making one for myself! Looks super easy. :)

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  5. Wow! that looks delicious and very creative!!! My son would love making this and I would love eating it!! I am following you on twitter & pinterest!
    http://thisolemom.blogspot.com
    Kim

    Kim

    ReplyDelete

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