Homemade Chocolate Ideas for Valentine’s
With chocolate being one of the top gifts during Valentine’s season, exorbitant amounts of money are often spent on this sweet present. However, putting in an extra effort to make homemade chocolate for your loved one will not only be cost-effective, but also prove a sweet, touching surprise. Since it is the effort that counts, you can tailor the candy to suit your cooking skill, and depending on this, attempt anything from elaborate chocolate truffles, to simple heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes.
Instructions
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Truffles are definitely one of the most exquisite types of chocolate candy, and the Valentine’s Day gift-giver’s chocolate of choice. This French candy consists of a thin, crisp shell of chocolate, filled with a smooth, creamy, velvety centre. Delicious to eat, truffles are notoriously difficult to make, and require a high level of cooking skill. Often, instead of creating a chocolate shell for the homemade version, you can cover the creamy chocolate filling with toppings like chopped nuts, cocoa powder, or even chopped caramel toffee.
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If you find truffles a formidable feat to attempt, you might try creating simpler chocolates, which can be just as special. For this purpose, you can buy moulds, or simply cover a cookie tray with parchment paper, and place heart-shaped cookie cutters on this, to serve as moulds. Once these are set, you can melt your preferred type of chocolate, add in any flavourings (vanilla, mint, etc) or other ingredients (chopped nuts, chopped toffee, crispy puffed rice, etc), and then pour this into the moulds. These can then be placed in the refrigerator to set and harden.
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If you feel truffles and chocolate are a little out of your league, try whipping up a batch of regular cookies, or a cake. This can be tailored to suit the occasion – e.g. you can make a red velvet cake or cupcakes, use pink or red icing, and use heart-shaped cookie cutters for cookies. Using frosting and a piping bag, you can also pipe sweet messages onto the cakes and cookies.
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Finally, if you are a complete disaster in the kitchen, you can opt to make chocolate-dipped fruits, which not even the worst cook can mess up. Simply get fruits like strawberries, raspberries, and cherries (without the stones), dip them in melted chocolate of your choice, line them up on a tray covered with parchment paper, sprinkle them with toppings like nuts or chopped candy, and slide them into the refrigerator to cool.
