Hi Y’All!
We are so excited for Valentine’s Day! A Day for L-O-V-E! Thanks for taking the time to stop in at our neck of the woods. We love having you come visit and sit a spell. So grab your special beverage, pull up a seat and let’s discuss Valentine’s Day and what it means to us.
I love this quote by Ann Landers:
“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.”
Isn’t that true for all our relationships? Those that love us and those that we love – love finds a way to forgive regardless of those imperfections that make us crazy. For instance I know my husband, Bill, was by no means perfect and the man could make me nuts over crazy stuff, but I was so mad with love for him! I love my kids – all five of them and my grandkids and yet they are not perfect – but the love we have for each other is. And yes, each person that I love in my life can and does make me crazy with their imperfections at one time or another….but I wouldn’t have it any other way. With that said, I also know that I am way from perfect and am thankful that my family and friends love me in spite of my own personal brand of craziness.
As you go about celebrating your special Valentine – whether it be sweetheart , child, friend or sibling may YOU be blessed with love yourself.
Now on to the REALLY good stuff – C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E!! I am all over this blog (I am a self professed chocoholic) and our video on How To Make Chocolate Bowls using water balloons was amazing fun! And just for you we also added a bonus on how to make the Sunk in Chocolate Strawberries. Enjoy!!
Chocolate Decadent Valentine’s Day Bowls
These are the items you’ll need
Blown up balloons – size depends on what size bowl you want
Chocolate candy melts – you can use a wide range of flavors
Wax paper – we put our wax paper on a cookie sheet for easy transport
Microwave-safe bowls – size depends on how much chocolate you are melting
Microwave oven
Spoons – for stirring and decorating
Fill a microwave-safe bowl with 2 cups of white candy melts. Microwave on full power for 60 seconds and then stir. Continue to microwave at 20-second intervals until melted. Make sure to stir each time. Ours was a little overdone, so careful on the timing. It seems the white melts need a shorter time than the milk chocolate.
Place about 1 cup of dark chocolate candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on full power for 60 seconds and then stir. Continue to microwave at 20-second intervals until melted. Make sure to stir thoroughly each time.
Next drizzle a little of the dark chocolate over the white chocolate. DO NOT STIR.
Dip a balloon into the drizzled chocolate mix. You can dip it as deep as you would like. Pull it out and let extras drip back into the bowl, then place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper to set.
We found that we wanted a thicker bowl, so we took a spoonfuls of chocolate and drizzle/smeared more chocolate on the balloon. An alternative is that you could let the chocolate dry a bit and re-dip it.
Continue until you have all balloons done. You may need to drizzle more dark chocolate on top as you need/want it.
Place them in the fridge so that they’ll harden in just a couple minute. This is where the cookie sheet came in handy for easy transport.
Now that the chocolate has set, gently squeeze the balloons to release them from the chocolate. Then, using scissors make a
small hole and peel the balloon out of the chocolate bowl.
**Disclaimer/Disclosure: Please be careful whom you share your chocolate bowls with as the balloons are latex and could be harmful to anyone with a latex allergy. We had one of our (orange) latex balloons leave some residue inside of one of the chocolate bowls.
To see our step-by-step directions in action, please check out The Hard Hat Belles video here.
Our Special Bonus
Sunk In Chocolate Strawberries
(or chocolate covered strawberries)
These are the items you’ll need
Strawberries – Cleaned and if desired remove the tops (we liked ours with the tops left on).
An ice tray or mold – we found that the silicone square cubes we used were hard to remove the chocolate sunk strawberries, so make sure the removal will be fairly easy.
Chocolate melts – again, the flavors all depend on what you like to use.
Microwave-safe bowl – is size dependent on how much you are making. You will find that when you use a mold, you will use a lot more chocolate.
Microwave
Spoon – for stirring.
Place about 1 cup of dark chocolate candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on full power for 60 seconds and then stir. Continue to microwave at 20-second intervals until melted. Make sure to stir thoroughly each time.
Pour some of the chocolate into the mold without filling it full.
Place strawberries in each molded cup. If they are quite a bit larger than your molds you may want to cut them to size.
Pour more melted chocolate over the strawberries filling the molds to the desired depth.
Place mold in refrigerator until completely firm, which will make removal easier.
To see how we made our chocolate sunk strawberries in a quick mini video, please click here.
ENJOY!!
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If you have any comments about on how your chocolate bowls turned out, short cuts or ideas, please let us know below in the comments. We’d love to hear from you – truly.
Love & Hugs,
Denine & Wiebke
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