Valentine’s Day is once again quickly approaching, for me it is a day that brings back fond memories of my grandma. Every year she used to make for us thetas chocolate hearts with the red skinned peanuts in them, wrap them individually in foil and my sister, brother, and I each got our own.
Man I loved those, and was going to use that for my recipe but since I just told you, I guess I can’t. 🙂 So let’s move onto a different type of candy. I am all for getting a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, but instead of buying them, why don’t you make a small batch yourself that you can customize.
It’s not as hard as one might think. I have several chocolate mold ‘s, but if you don’t have any just do a drop candy. Candy making only gets more involved if you are tempering chocolate, you can email about questions for this if you like, or are doing something with sugar.
This is a super quick and easy ” truffle” filled chocolate. The thing I can’t stress enough is do not use almond bark, buy something with flavor, that is going to look good and taste good when you are done. I like to buy a bag of Dove milk chocolate candies and melt them down. I always melt in a double boiler, not the microwave because it is too easy to burn your chocolate in there.
- 1 bag dove chocolate, milk or dark
- 2 cups chocolate cake trimmings ( get into the habit of keeping a ziploc bag of trimmings in the freezer, you will need surprised at how many different things you will use them for.)
- 1/2 vanilla buttercream, this is the perfect time to use those pre made frostings if you want and crumble it all together.
- 1/4 t flavored extract, mint, raspberry, or cherry.
Mix together and be ready to put into your molded chocolate.
Once your chocolate is melted, pour it into your chocolate molds, turn the mold over onto some parchment paper and let the excess drain out, it will coat the sides as it drains, if not totally coated use the back of the spoon to finish coating the sides let the chocolate set, about 20 minutes, and press in your truffle filling, remember to keep it a little bit under the top of the mold, so when you top of the mold with chocolate it is even. Once you add your filling to the molds, top them with melted chocolate, tap the pan so the chocolate evenly distributes across the candy.
You can place the mold in the refrigerator at this point and let the chocolate set about 20 minutes. Once dry/ set invert the mold and push out any chocolates that don’t fall out. Place on a pretty plate and serve.
Now if you don’t want to make the filling, fill the molds with your chocolate, drain and then you could add your own thing, rice krispies, raisins, peanuts, whatever you want. The point is to give that little extra of yourself too the one you love.
With that in mind, have a holiday full of love, hugs, and memories.
Natilie Cavnar is a cooking fanatic who loves to try new recipes, and create some of her own, ask her what you want at thenormalchef@gmail.com.
