The Nontraditional Valentine

Since Tug is not a big fan of things sweet, it can be rather challenging finding a food-related Valentine’s Day gift.  (He doesn’t have such difficulties.  This morning I was greeted with a gift bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups, three Lindt chocolate bars – chocolate chile, dark chocolate sea salt and white chocolate coconut – and a bag of Lindt white chocolate truffles.)  There are the rare occasions when he’ll nibble on a small piece of dark chocolate, or eat a cookie or two, but they are indeed rare occasions.  I had thought about making brownies and cutting them into hearts, but he may have eaten one, two if I was lucky.  Instead, I made him something I know he really likes:  bread.  The man is an absolute carbohydrate junkie when it comes to bread.  

He was pretty happy with the focaccia I made last month, so that’s what I chose to make him for Valentine’s Day.  Baked in a heart-shaped pan of course.  And I made dinner.

focaccia baked in Wilton's (retired) puffed heart pan

Since I had all of those peanut butter cups though, I decided to make this recipe from Katie at Making Michael Pollan Proud.  When I first read it I nearly drooled on my keyboard.  For the most part I followed the recipe.  You know I have a problem in that regard.  What I did differently was use seven peanut butter cups (because I neurotically don’t like even numbers) and since I only had old-fashioned oats instead of rolled oats, I measured out one cup and gave them a buzz in the food processor then mixed them in with the other dry ingredients.  I find old-fashioned oats are just a little bit too toothsome in cookies.  The final thing I did differently was after mixing in the dry ingredients I switched to the dough hook attachment to mix in the chocolate chips and chopped peanut butter cups.  It worked like a charm to mix them in without crushing them.

After baking and cooling them, I boxed up almost all of them for Tug to take to work tomorrow.  These are so good that I have to get them out of the house.  Katie suggested that they freeze well so she freezes them to keep from eating them.  I have a feeling I would eat these frozen!

I couldn't resist pressing the last few scoops of dough into one of my
heart-shape cookie cutters.  Yes, I am a dork when it comes to Valentine's Day!

Projects for Valentine's Day

Last night as I'm lying wide awake in bed thinking about the pan of caramel upstairs, my mind began to wander toward Valentine's Day coming up (and on a Monday, puh-leaze!).  Could I use some of my heart-shaped cutters to make cute little caramel hearts?  Indeed I could.  And indeed I did.  I would have preferred a cutter sized somewhere in between the two I had, so that's something to keep in mind when I get to Hobby Lobby.



The wooden tenderizer (which has never touched a piece of meat)

was for pressing the cutter into the caramel and saving my fingers.

 

Little caramel beauties ready to be boxed up.



I also started thinking about some of the cake pieces I had in the freezer.  Yes, I freeze cake scraps.  It's really difficult for me to throw away cake.  I've made cake balls before, but how about making more little hearts out of chocolate chile cake scraps?  So I did.  They're not finished yet. 


All lined up and waiting to take a dip.

 Meanwhile I was also thinking about the strawberry-hibiscus cupcakes with lemongrass buttercream.  They were still sitting boxed on the counter waiting for the requisite number of days to pass before I could force myself to throw them away.  (It's an ordeal I have to work up to.)  Maybe they would make some nice little cake hearts as well.  No, not really.  I even added a little ginger syrup as I was mixing them up.  Didn't help.  So with a heavy heart, it was finally time to send it to the trash.  Experiment status:  failed.  Redemption is needed.