Penguin ice cream bars

Penguin ice cream bars made from chocolate-covered ice cream bars, chocolate wafer wings and candy beaks, eyes, and body details.

To make our fun penguin ice cream bars, you do more assembling than cooking, which makes it a great holiday activity to do with kids. You prepare all of the penguin parts using cookies, candies and sprinkles. Then you melt almond bark to serve as the glue. In no time, you'll transform regular chocolate-covered ice cream pops into festive holiday treats that will have everyone waddling up to the dessert table.

Yield: 3 to 6 penguins

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Ingredients

1 to 2 boxes of chocolate-covered ice cream pops (we used Talenti® Gelato Pops with 3 pops per box)
Chocolate wafer cookies for the flippers
Large white pearl sprinkles for eyes
Blue sprinkles for eyes
Small white pearl sprinkles for bellies
Gummy orange candies for beaks and feet
Almond bark, melted, for glue
Small food-safe paintbrush
Parchment paper

Directions

Preparation

  1. For the wings, break the cookies in half. Tip:To break the cookies in half evenly, score a line down the cookies using a sharp knife then break them along the score line.
  2. For the eyes, count out 2 large white pearl sprinkles and 2 blue sprinkles per penguin.
  3. For the beaks, cut the top and bottom ends from gummy orange segments, leaving the middle section for the penguin feet. Repeat with additional gummy segments until you have enough for all your penguin pops.
  4. For the feet, cut the middle sections of the gummy oranges in half.
  5. For the bellies, fill a small bowl with small white pearl sprinkles.
  6. Gather all the penguin parts so you can assemble each one quickly and pop it back into the freezer until serving time.

Assembly

  1. Melt the almond bark using a double boiler or at 30-second intervals in the microwave until you have about 1 cup of melted bark.
  2. Remove 1 ice cream pop from the freezer. Start with the belly by painting a triangle or Christmas-tree shape with the melted almond bark at the bottom center area of the front of the pop (stick side down),and then dip the painted area into the bowl of small white pearl sprinkles to cover the almond bark.
  3. Next, add dots of almond bark to the top of each cookie half and attach the cookies to the body on either side of the sprinkled belly.
  4. Using small dots of melted almond bark, attach 2 eyes and a beak above the wings, and then add the feet below the belly.
  5. Place the penguin pop on a parchment-paper-covered baking sheet and return it to the freezer, and then begin your next pop. Repeat until you've created your colony of penguin pops. Reheat almond bark in microwave in 10-second intervals, if necessary, to keep its melted consistency.

Tip: Prepare all the penguin parts and melt the almond bark before removing the ice cream pops from the freezer.

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