Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope you all have a fabulous day spending time with the ones you love…or take the time to spoil yourselves rotten!
Hubby and Q woke up to a bouquet of chocolate dipped strawberries and some homemade chocolate turtles. Cocoa spiced pecans were also packed into jars for my two loves.
Every year, I make hubby a chocolate treat. In the past there have been truffles, home made Ferrero and even Almond Joy. This year, I decided on Turtles! They were super easy to make, although a little less time cooking the caramel would have been ideal.
In case you overcook your caramel like I did, just chop the chocolates up and use them to top chocolate covered strawberries! It adds the perfect crunch to the juicy berries.
Shortbread cookies for work and cupcakes from yesterday’s kindergarten party rounded out our Valentine’s table. I had a box of President’s Choice Red Velvet mix from the holidays so made up the batter for that as well as the batter for sour cream cake. A scoop of each created the perfect red and white cupcake for Q to decorate with cream cheese frosting.
Chocolate Turtles
1 cup whole pecan pieces
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 TB water
1 cup chocolate
Toast the pecans and place them in pairs on a parchment lined cookie sheet.
Combine the cream, butter, brown sugar and water. Stir over medium heat until combined and smooth. Let the mixture come up to a boil and cook without stirring until 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Watch the caramel mixture carefully. Let the caramel sit for a minute and then pour a spoonful on each pair of pecans. Let the caramel set for at least an hour.
Melt the chocolate in a microwave, stirring after every 30 second interval. Pour a spoonful on each caramel pecan bite. Let the chocolates set in the fridge.
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