Make your own Chocolate Valentine Hearts

Spoil your better half this year and make them some chocolate hearts giving you the option to finish them with their favourite sweets.  Go on give it go it’s not that difficult, you get to lick the bowl out when you have finished!!

Ingredients

500grms Dark Chocolate (min 53% cocoa solids go for 70% if you can)

500Grms White Chocolate (good quality)

Selection of sweets and sprinkles (your partners favourites)

Baking Parchment Silicone ( not baking paper paper)

Disposable piping bags 2

Method

Place your baking parchment on a tray and draw a selection of heart shapes, leave about a 2 to 3 inch gap between each one make them as large or small as you like. Then turn the paper over and make sure you can see the hearts through the paper, these will be your template.

Chop the chocolate up into small pieces and place into seperate bowls and melt gently over a saucepan of barely simmering water, ( do not have it boiling away, it is best to melt the chocolate slowly and the bowl must not be touching the water) You can turn the heat off once the water is hot enough, gently stir the chocolate every now and then to help it to melt, avoid getting any water into the chocolate.

Once all the chocolate has melted remove from the saucepan place the bowl on the side and leave to cool stirring the chocolate from time to time so it cools evenly. You need the chocolate to cool to about 32 degrees c for the dark and 30 degrees for the white. ( dont panic about getting the exact temperature you dont need to for this recipe)  To find out if the chocolate is a good temperature to work with every now and then when you stir your chocolate just touch your bottom lip with some of the melted chocolate when it feels cool to your lip you are good to go, if it still feels warm wait a little longer. Now pour some of the chocolate into one of your piping bags ( which ever chocolate you want), then using scissors snip off the end of the bag creating a small hole, dont cut too big a hole. Then pipe onto the paper with your chocolate tracing over the lines you drew earlier to form your heart shape. Pipe as many as you like and then leave to cool, until they are just set enough to touch with out sticking to your finger. Then using the other flavour chocolate fill your other piping bag and then cut a hole slightly bigger than the first one and then pipe the chocolate into the middle of your hearts filling them up right to the edges, be careful not to over fill you dont want the chocolate to spill over. now whilst the chocolate is still liquid gently tap your tray on the table to help it even out, then place your sweets into the chocolate gently pushing them in and leave to set in a cool place. (Try to avoid putting them in the fridge if you can, unless your kitchen is really warm and that is your only option)  When the hearts have cooled completely you can gently lift them from the paper, and job done. If cooling without using the fridge leave for at least a couple of hours.