My Sweet Valentine

Right now Alex is peacefully sleeping and I will be off to work before he wakes so I won’t get to see his reaction to the Valentine’s gift I left him this morning. And actually I’m okay with that as it might be more enjoyable for him to open it without me hovering over him. It might afford him the time to just relax and enjoy it.

So what did I make for him? Well, after my successful chocolate candy making experiment over the holidays, Alex has been begging me to make more. So always wanting to please my hon, I decided that Valentine’s Day was the perfect reason to get back into it. I knew that I wanted to use the occasion appropriate hearts and kisses molds for the shape.

And for the filling? Well, having been born and spending his early childhood in New Hampshire and Vermont, Alex has a certain affinity for maple. Maple sugar, maple candy, maple cream, maple syrup, and, of course, maple butter. So what better way to treat him for Valentine’s Day than to mix his recent chocolate candy request with his love of maple?

For the kisses, I cut thin strips of pink tissue paper and wrote little notes with things that I love about him on it and placed it in the kiss before wrapping it in foil.

I then packaged them all up in a tin with pink tissue paper and, because Alex is a software engineer and totally geeks out on things like this (and I won’t deny that I don’t either), I wrapped his gift in paper that says “I love you” in binary. Can any other geeks out there read this? 🙂

Maple Filled Chocolate Candy

These are so ridiculously easy to make!

Ingredients

• 2 cups (or more depending how many you want to make) chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
• maple butter (or maple cream)

Melt Chocolate and Assemble: In a microwave or heavy saucepan, melt the chocolate chips and shortening until completely smooth. If you want to be extra careful not to burn the chocolate, you can use a double boiler. With a paintbrush (or small spoon) paint the inside of the mold with the melted chocolate. Once you’ve completed every heart and kiss in the mold, place it in the freezer for 3-5 minutes until hardened. Remove from the freezer and fill each heart and kiss with the maple butter. The maple butter I was working with was VERY sticky so I had to grease my finger when working with it. If you use maple cream, you probably won’t need to do that. Then cover the maple butter with the melted chocolate and put the molds back in the freezer until the chocolate hardens completely. Pull them out of the freezer, pop them out of the mold and store in a cool place until ready to serve.
Enjoy!