I know that Valentine’s Day has long gone, but I wanted to show you the present I made for my husband. I felt that it could be it useful as a gift idea for the man in your life {is it just me or are boys notoriously difficult to purchase presents for?} or anyone else special to you that you want to show love to.
Chocolate usually goes down as a great present for the young and old ~ but half the problem with buying chocolates is that it just seems so impersonal. That’s why I decided to ‘make’ my own for the hubby.
He happens to adore liquorice all sorts, actually any type of liquorice, so I thought that I would start from there and see how I went!
Supplies:
~ Chocolate to melt down
~ Candy to dip in the chocolate {I used liquorice}
~ Bowl & Saucepan to melt chocolate in
~ Piping bag or substitute
~ Non-stick baking paper
~ Tray/plates
~ Space in your fridge
~ Wrapping paper/cellophane/sticky tape/scissors
Step 1: Lay out all of your supplies ~ things are going to get messy!
Step 2: Melt your chocolate in a bowl. The method is really simple; just fill a saucepan with water, put the bowl on top and set to boil.
You can melt the chocolate in a microwave, but I find it easier not to burn it using the pot method.
Note: Be careful not to let any of the boiling water get into the chocolate because this will ruin it as it causes the chocolate to separate.
Step 3: Lay out your candy on non-stick baking paper so it’s ready to cover with melted chocolate. You can do this while the chocolate is melting, but do not forget to keep an eye on the pot so all the water does not boil away.
Step 4: Piping time! If you do not have a piping bag, it isn’t a problem. Just spoon a decent amount of chocolate into a sandwich bag, and cut one corner.
Cut a small hole because you can always make it bigger, but you can not make it smaller! Then pipe away to your heart’s content.
Step 5: Cover your candy with chocolate. I dipped half of the liquorice all sorts in the chocolate bowl for more ‘coverage’ and piped squiggles of chocolate on the other half.
Step 6: Make some truffle chocolates. Okay, so I have to confess ~ I was not planning to do these, they came around because I made a mistake.
I wanted to see if I could improve the chocolate flavour with a bit of milk and butter. The only problem is that the milk acted like water and separated the chocolate. I do not know if it is because of the temperature {I put the cold milk in} or because it was a liquid.
Either way the chocolate was pretty much ruined for piping/dipping so I squeezed the mixture into little squares and popped some coloured choc chip decorations on top. My suggestion for making proper truffles instead of mistake ones is to try this recipe, or this one, or any other you might like to taste!
Step 7: Pipe a chocolate valentine for your sweetheart. ^ u ^ I just did a heart shaped outline and then filled it in. I wrote “I ♥ U” in chocolate chips for a special message.
*Sorry ~ I forgot to take a photo!* Step 8: Put your chocolates in the fridge until they have set.
Step 9: Wrap your chocolates up. I wrapped my ‘valentine’ separately with a lid underneath it so it didn’t snap or break.
I put all of the liquorice in an banana split bowl I bought from Woolworths, but you could use a heart shaped box if you want, or an ordinary bowl; it really depends on what you think up.
Step 10: Give your yummy handmade chocolates as a gift and watch them disappear! Or, alternatively you could keep them for yourself and watch them disappear…… > U <
xox,
bonita
