Chocolate for Valentines

I am not really a mushy girl.  When Valentine’s Day rolls around, I do not want or expect flowers nor do I want or expect to go to a mobbed restaurant for dinner.  Typically, I insist we stay in and make something “nicer-than-normal” for our supper.  I could see going out of my way to bake my sweetie a beautiful, time-consuming dessert, but then I acknowledge that my husband is not really as excited about sweets like I am, so instead I make him simple peanut butter cookies – his favorites.  If I am feeling particularly amorous, I top them with milk chocolate kisses, his preference in chocolate.

Raw Vegan Chocolate Pie.

Most romantic sweets seem to center around chocolate and that is no surprise.  Chocolate has a long history, filled with mystical stories, world travel, claims of aphrodisiac effects, and a host of health benefits.  You are hard pressed to find a person who doesn’t like chocolate, and it is a safe bet that a box of them will be appreciated and savored long after the gift is given.

Chocolate Peanut Granola.

In my lifetime, I have seen the progression of substandard, cheap chocolate (the flavor of which still reminds me of hollow-middled Easter bunnies) give way to ridiculously expensive, but worth every penny, luxury bars.  Chocolates now come with pedigrees, stamps of their single origin and labeled by the amount of cacao percentage they contain.  Now when approaching your friends or sweethearts with chocolate, you have to know what kind they prefer, and that is something that cements them to you in a more intimate way.  “You love dark chocolate?  Me too!”  “You remembered I don’t like dark chocolate?  How thoughtful!”

My personal preference is dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.  I love adding more cocoa powder to my recipes than called for, reducing the flour by the same amount of my cocoa increases.  I love when I can call something “coal black” or “deep and dark”, and I’m not above a personal chocolate fix of just melting some high quality dark chocolate in a saucepan with a pinch of cayenne or a dried chile de arbol and whisking in small amount of milk for a quick spicy shot.  I know the chocolate preference of every member of my family, and most of my friends too.  I also know that if it contains chocolate my picky son will eat it no matter what.

Chocolate Beet Cake.

Even though I have reduced my sugar consumption drastically, it doesn’t stop me from daydreaming of some of my favorite chocolate desserts, and a few that I’ve just seen that I can’t wait to make.  If you are looking for some chocolaty ideas for your valentine… You could:

Mallow Cookies.

Chocolate Syrup.

Chocolate Pavlova.

If you are looking for the perfect box of chocolates or luxury bars, remember there are now quite a few Wisconsin chocolatiers you can patronize.  I have not had the pleasure of tasting them, but hope to visit Gail Ambrosius’s shop in Madison sometime to sample her gorgeous flavor combinations.  When I first read about her, I spent hours on her website!  Many, more local shops like Outpost and Beans & Barley carry delicious Waukesha-based Indulgence Chocolates, and you could take a quirky trip to Northern Chocolate Company on Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. if you are brave and don’t go in wearing a fur…

I’m not mushy, but if I was surprised with some quality chocolate for Valentine’s day, I would not complain.  I’d savor every little nibble, and make it last a long time.  More likely, however, I’ll enjoy a couple of milk chocolate-topped peanut butter cookies – and maybe I’ll even try and reduce the sugar content a little bit and see if my sweetheart notices.