My boys love chocolate and dogs, you just can’t let dogs eat chocolate because chocolate is toxic for dogs. However you can make a fun chocolate candy dog craft, combining both of their favorite things without harming any furry friends.
My boys have been waiting for The Secret Life of Pets to open in theaters since last summer. I can’t remember the last time we’ve had to wait so long for a movie! In the meantime we made a super cute candy dog craft that is fun to make and yummy to eat!
After coming across an adorable candy dog creation on Pinterest, I knew the boys would love to create their very own version inspired by Buddy from The Secret Life of Pets.
Buddy is a dachshund (aka wiener dog) and is adorable. I love how he uses his owner’s mixer to scratch his back. There is no mixer or baking involved in this fun activity. You just need various kinds of chocolate and candy to make your own candy dog!
Candy Dog Craft Materials
- Twix candy bars (dog body)
- Hershey’s Kisses (dog head)
- Chocolate chips (dog feet)
- marshmallow (dog eyes)
- colored licorice (dog collar)
- caramel fudge squares (tail, ears, and neck)
- black decorating gel
- chocolate cookie icing
I recommend prepping the materials before you get started. That includes unwrapping the candy and making sure it’s cool. You don’t want the candy frozen because it will be too hard to work with. T
his project is best done on a cooler day or when you have the air conditioner running full blast. Your body warmth will start melting the chocolate anyway, you don’t want the air temperature to make it worse. We also pulled up a picture of Buddy from The Secret Life of Pets on my laptop for inspiration!
How to make a dog using chocolate
The base of the dog is a Twix bar. We used chocolate cookie icing as our glue for a couple of reasons. The number one reason is for safety.
If the kids weren’t involved, I’d likely just used melted chocolate instead but I didn’t want the boys to burn themselves on accident. I already had a pouch of cookie icing on hand but if you don’t, I suggest adding chocolate frosting to a plastic bag and cutting off the tip to pipe it on to your candy dog.
We glued (with frosting) 4 dark chocolate chips to the bottom of the Twix bar for the dog feet. Let the frosting set for a minute before turning him over. The gravity of the dog sitting on the chocolate chips will also help the feet stay on.
Mold a piece of caramel fudge into a dog tail. Use the chocolate icing to glue the tail to one end of the candy bar. Hold the tail in place for a few minutes to help the frosting secure it in place.
Use a small piece of caramel fudge to create a neck and attach it to the front end of the dog. Then wrap a small piece of licorice around the neck to create the dog’s collar. Buddy’s collar is blue in the movie, we used blue licorice for most of our dogs. Elliot decided his dog needed an orange collar. 😉
How to Decorate The Candy Dog Head
The head is the hardest part mostly because of the eyes. I had a couple different candy eyes on hand but none were small enough to use for this project. Instead, I punched out tiny pieces of marshmallow and then used a little black gel to make the pupil. It’s not perfect but it works and the kids didn’t bat an eye… 😉
Wait to make the eyes until you are ready to attach them, then the sticky part of the marshmallow will be enough to adhere it to the face. If you make the eyes ahead, the stickiness will dry out and you will need to use frosting to attach them.
Mold a set of long ears using the caramel fudge and attach it them with chocolate frosting. Then attach the head to the neck of the dog using more chocolate frosting. The last step is to dab a little black gel to the front of the nose.
Our house was a little warm the afternoon we made these, so I had to pop the candy dogs into the freezer a few times to stop the melting process. It also helped harden our frosting glue in between steps but as you can see in my pictures it created a little condensation when we pulled them back out.
I’d like to say we enjoyed the candy dogs for several days, admiring our handy work but the boys made short work eating them. 😉 This project turned out pretty cute and I think it’d make a fun pet themed party activity. Just set up the materials and let the kids create their own candy dogs.
More Edible Crafts
- Baby Yoda Treats
- Apple Turkey Craft
- Secret Life of Pets Cupcakes
- Rice Krispie Dragon
- Mini Rice Krispie Gingerbread House
This post was originally published July 8, 2016. Our candy dog craft was inspired by this sweet candy bar dog over on Handmade Charlotte.
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