Easy Acorn Assemblage

This assembly of mini chocolate chips,  Hershey's kisses with mini 'Nilla wafers is a fun and easy fall and winter food DIY. These little treats can be made to eat alone or to use as dessert table fillers, cake toppers, or simply a food activity for the kids!

We used the acorns for decoration on a store bought pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving dessert. That, and I needed something to keep the kids busy and involved while I prepped and cooked the Thanksgiving meal. My 5 year old and 12 year old loved it! 

I normally do elaborate activities with the food and crafts for holidays. With Covid, and just 2020 in general, these acorns were my limit for this Thanksgiving season. 

In Montreal I would do things weekly with the kids for the holidays. Our real fall culinary tradition was chocolate leaves and caramel acorns atop cupcakes. Every year for the last 8 years we would go to Mont Royal to collect leaves.

It was our ritual to pick up the fallen colored leaves, play in them, have a picnic in them, walk around and take the beautiful seasonal colors in.  

We would bring home the leaves, wash and thoroughly dry them and coat them with chocolates and make chocolate leaves to make an edible cupcake wreathe to take to friends' homes or my husband's work to spread some seasonal cheer. 

NOT THIS YEAR! Worst part? D REMEMBERED and this was my mommy effort to make things culinarily right with tradition. 

These acorns are super easy! One Target pickup away, and no cooking necessary. Edible DIY's are my fave!

FUNDABBLER FACT

We can eat acorns as humans however we have to treat it before eating them because of the high amount of tannins in the acorn as it is toxic if used untreated. 

YOU WILL NEED

Hershey Kisses 

Mini baking chocolate chips

Mini 'nilla wafers (I had no idea these even existed, but they do at Target in the US. Have not seen them in Canada. So sorry to international readers. Any 1 inch wafer cookie or cracker will work. Think outside the box, I have faith in you!)

DIRECTIONS

I melted some of the chocolate chips in the microwave to use as the "glue" for our assembly. 

The easiest way to do it is glue the little top mini chip first with melted chocolate to the mini 'Nilla wafer. The weight of the Kiss moves it before the chocolate cools and makes the end result less "clean" looking if you do that first. Patients is not a virtue to many kids (or adults for that matter) so the mini chip doesn't wiggle around as much when you flip it to stick on the Kiss.

Then flip and add chocolate with a toothpick to the other side and add your Kiss.

The kids wanted to dip the Kiss into the melted chocolate but what that caused is the Kiss dropping then melting because of their hot little fingers and the warmed chocolate "glue", and then falling again, on the table, floor or back into the chocolate. So save yourself the extra clean-up and use a toothpick or a tool of some sort. 

I then placed them onto a cooking rack with the little stems downwards until they dried. If you're in a rush place in the fridge but this was more busy work for the kids to keep them occupied and involved more than anything else. 

Happy Fall!

ENJOY!