Valentines Day Sweethearts- Choco-love and a Giveaway!

by Maggie Kelleher

Happy February! As we are approaching Valentine's Day, I wanted to share some ideas for your sweetheart, as this is the holiday of the sweet-tooth, and I think coffee cake definitely fits that bill.

Cakes are wonderful (I'm sure you can at least guess how I feel about them), but the amount of work necessary to make them is not always so wonderful. And when I'm trying to impress someone with my baking creations, I stress even more about the look and taste of my creations.

I see these chocolate creations as the perfect accompaniment to My Grandma's cakes, as they make a statement and show your loved one that you care and spent some time on them, even without advanced baking skill or the time to use it.

And along with My Grandma's Sweetheart tin, they send the most adorable message!

What are these "creations?" I like to call them Choco-words or Choco-love. With a plastic bag, chocolate chips, and some aluminum foil I wrote Valentines Sweet-heart style words in chocolate, which could be frozen and transferred to any sweet destination you had in mind. With some homemade caramel on top of My Grandma's Chocolate Chip coffee cake, they were delightful.

How can you do this yourself? All you need is:

• 1 cup of chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate, but I would love to try this with dark chocolate). Obviously use more chocolate for more words, if you want them.
• 1 thick sandwich bag (one that won't split at the seams-- my first attempt did this and it was messy and unfortunate) and a pair of scissors
• Aluminum foil or wax paper
• Some space in your refrigerator
• A microwave

Melt the chocolate chips by microwaving them in a microwave safe bowl. I suggest 30 seconds at a time, stirring in-between, until smooth. Do not burn. I did this 3 times until the chocolate was smooth.

Spoon the melted chocolate (start with a small amount) into one corner of the sandwich bag. Use the scissors to cut a small bit of that corner of the bag, as if you were piping a tiny bit of frosting.

Use the bag as a pen to write whatever words or shapes your heart desires onto a flat piece of aluminum foil or wax paper. Practice a few times first to get a good grip on the bag, and determine how thick you want your letters. There will be breakage, so make sure to write extra words.

Note: Letters should be as thick as possible in order to minimize breakage when transferring frozen chocolate words. Feel free to go back over your original lines to make them thicker, if needed. 

This thickness or more worked best, anything thinner fell apart almost immediately.

Place foil in refrigerator to allow chocolate to set.

I used my My Grandma's box to create a flat surface in my fridge- yay reusing!

Once hardened, carefully peel aluminum foil away from the letters and place in their final home. Careful when handling, the chocolate will melt in your hands. These are great because they can be stored in the fridge or freezer and used at different times, and the thicker they are the sturdier they can be so you can use them as cupcake toppers or whatever you can think of! Shoot for the moon!

Write anything you want. I stuck with the traditional hugs, xoxo, love, yumm, and heart shapes. Pay attention to the lines you are creating and how sturdy they might be. Love rarely held together for me because the L would fall off, but xoxo worked very well because it was more of a connected shape that held together. It would also be cute to write out your and your partner's initials!

 

Look at that delicious Valentine's Day dessert! And all you need is some chocolate and a cake to do it yourself! Order by February 5th for Valentine's Day delivery!

Go forth and spread the love! Good luck!

And... stay tuned for the recipe for that delicious salted orange caramel in the pictures. We will be posting it before the month is out! Check out the left-hand bar of this blog to subscribe and get our posts and recipes sent straight to your email!

 

AND... You can win a cake for yourself later this February after your Valentine gets their treats! 

Enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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