Happy Valentine's Day {Chocolate Edition}

We've been a wee bit snowed in for the last two days. I was searching in the cabinets for something fun to make and ran across this Make Your Own Chocolate Kit that my son got for Christmas. I thought I would give it a try because, let's face it, who wants to be snowed in without chocolate am I right? Then the little light bulb went off and I thought: perfect Valentine's Day gift for my hubby too. Double win.

Here is the kit we had. You can get it on Amazon for $10.99 plus shipping. It makes about 20 pieces.  The package says 8 oz. The fun part? You can add anything to the dark chocolate. Like raisins, marshmallows, peanut butter (my fave), peanuts, etc.

The contents are organic Costa Rican cocoa butter, cocoa powder, confectioner's sugar, starter crystals, a temperature indicator, paper candy liners, instructions, and the story of chocolate. They also give you some cacao beans to taste. This is easy to do with your little one to help them see where chocolate comes from and how it melts. They are also good taste testers!

The directions are super easy to follow. My motto for 2013 and forever is "don't make it hard on yourself". So I used the microwave method! It worked perfectly.

I melted the cocoa butter. This smells sooooo good. Keep melting it until it is all liquid.

Then I added the sugar and the cocoa and stirred until well combined. You could literally stop right here and eat the whole bowl. What? Did I say that?

They give you a stick on temperature indicator to put on the side of your bowl. The directions say it needs to be 94 degrees when you add the starter crystals (makes chocolate hard). I found this to be the least helpful. It never really worked for me so I just went by the consistency of the chocolate.

 

You're letting the chocolate cool down at this point so go ahead and get your paper liners ready with whatever you want to add or just leave them plain.

I added the starter crystals. See the little lumps?

I popped it back into the microwave for 10 seconds because as I was stirring I noticed they were not disappearing. I figured I had let the chocolate cool too long. This is where the temperature indicator kind of failed. But it wasn't a big deal. Here's what it looked like after the zap in the micro. Perfect.

Time to add to the paper liners.

Put them in the fridge for 15 minutes. When they come out they will be hard. Here's a peanut butter one that I topped with some sea salt. This was my favorite combo. I know you can make your own chocolate at home without this kit but if you want to have a relatively easy and fast way to make fancy pants chocolate then this is it. No mess, no complicated recipe and your kids can help. 

This is what I gave my hubby with a little Valentine's Day card that I put together in the throws of the snow storm. I think he was pleasently surprised!