If food is your love language, you’re in the right place. From cooking someone their favorite meal to carefully recreating our mom’s handwritten recipe for chocolate chip cookies, crafting delicacies in the kitchen is one of our go-to methods of expressing love.
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we’re reaching for extra-indulgent recipes to impress that special someone. Whether you want to bake a treat for your sweetie, shower your honey with some sugar, or catch the eye of your crush, these Valentine’s Day recipes will fill them with sweet sentiments.
Valentine's Day Dessert: Chocolate Chip and Walnut Cookies
Recipe courtesy of Magnolia Mixes
Ingredients
1 pack Magnolia Mixes Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
½ cup of walnuts, pecans, or other nut
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon milk
1 egg
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a mixing bowl, beat cookie mix, walnuts, butter, milk, andeggs for 3 minutes on medium speed. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
Measuring heaping tablespoons of dough and drop onto prepared baking sheet, spacing cookies 2 inches apart. Bake until lightly browned on edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool for 2 to 3 minutes before moving cookies from baking sheet to a cooling rack.
Valentine's Day Dessert: Bourbon-Chocolate Mousse
Recipe courtesy of Bourbon Barrel Foods
Serves 2
Ingredients
1 large egg, yolk and white separated
½ cup of heavy cream, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons sugar
⅓ cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon Bourbon Smoked Sea Salt, plus more for garnish
In a small bowl, whisk the egg white until it forms stiff peaks. In a medium bowl, whisk the heavy cream until it forms stiff peaks. Set both aside in the refrigerator.
In a small bowl, beat egg yolk with sugar until it becomes thick and pale in color and the sugar dissolves, about 2 to 3 minutes.
In a small saucepan, add about an inch of water and bring it to a simmer. Place a small, heat-proof bowl over the saucepan and add the chocolate, butter, and a pinch of smoked salt. Over low heat, cook just until the chocolate melts. Remove from heat. Stir to combine.
Spoon ¼ of the chocolate into the egg yolk mixture and mix just until combined. Pour this mixture into the remaining chocolate and place over the simmering water in the saucepan. Add the vanilla extract. Stirring constantly, cook over low heat until the mixture thickens, about 2 minutes.
Stir in 1/3 of the whipped egg whites into the cooled chocolate mixture. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites. Gently fold the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream, being careful not to over mix. Pour the mixture into two serving cups or bowls and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 to 6 hours.
To serve, sprinkle top with a pinch of Bourbon Smoked Sea Salt, a dollop of whipped cream, and Bourbon Smoked Cacao Nibs.
Valentine's Day Dessert Recipe: Griff's Coffee Toffee Tiramisu
10 to 12 pieces Griff's Coffee Toffee, finely chopped (use more or less toffee depending on how crunchy you want your dessert to be)
1½ cups heavy cream
½ cup dark brown sugar packed
Heavy pinch salt
1½ cups mascarpone cheese, room temperature
¼ cup salted caramel liqueur (such as Bailey's) or caramel or butterscotch dessert sauce
For the Espresso Dip
1½ cups cold espresso or strong coffee
¼ cup coffee liqueur, optional
Assembly
3 (24-piece) packages of lady fingers, Savoiardi brand (you might not use all the cookies)
Cocoa powder for sifting, stencil optional
Directions
Make the coffee toffee cream: Pour the heavy cream into a large bowl. Whisk in brown sugar and salt and allow to sit until the sugar dissolves, about 10 minutes.
Using a hand mixer or in your stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whisk the cream until it holds medium-soft peaks. Add the room temperature mascarpone and continue to whip until mixture just reaches stiff peaks. (Do not over whip or mascarpone can become grainy.) Fold in the Griff's Coffee Toffee crunchy bits until they are evenly dispersed in the cream.
Make the espresso dip: In a shallow dish, mix the cold espresso or strong coffee with the coffee liqueur.
Working with no more than 2 or 3 lady fingers at a time, briefly dip both sides of the cookies into the coffee mixture. Layer them closely together in a 7x11-inch glass dish. Continue dipping and placing until you fill the bottom of the dish with a single layer.
Scoop about ⅓ of the coffee toffee cream onto the lady fingers and spread evenly.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 twice more, ending with the last third of the cream. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the cream and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or preferably overnight.
Just before serving, carefully peel off plastic wrap. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder into a fine-mesh strainer and evenly and generously dust the top of the tiramisu. (You could optionally use a stencil here.)
Chef’s note: Tiramisu is a soft dessert, so much as with pie, the first piece or two might not come beautifully out of the dish. But after those first two, you should be able to get nice, clean slices. If you are feeling spunky, wipe your knife clean between cuts to achieve the neatest look.
