We all seem to think of chocolate and cherries and strawberries and flowers and cards and hearts and….. for Valentine’s Day. So what I decided to do was combine a few of those to make a homemade sweet treat to hand out to the teachers this year. Really it is so easy and it just shows that you put a little more effort into your gift giving when you make something by hand. So here are my Almond Cherry Chocolate Hearts.
I picked up the heart mold for this project at either Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. I don’t remember which one, but this time of year you can find them at any craft store. This is actually an ice mold, but it can also be used for chocolate since it is flexible. With just three ingredients these Almond Cherry Chocolate Hearts can be done in about 5-10 minutes.
Start by melting some chocolate bark or chocolate chips in a glass bowl in the microwave. As stated in my no peanut “peanut butter” cups post, I start by microwaving the chocolate for 1 minute to start, stir, then heat in 30 seconds increments until the chocolate is melted. Try not to over heat it because it becomes yucky and crystalized. I melted 1 package of the chocolate bark.
Then I took about a cup of roasted salted almonds and chopped them to tiny pieces. Next chop about 1/2-1 cup of dried cherries. These two flavors pair well with chocolate. Once chopped, add the ingredients into the chocolate bowl and stir together. Yep that easy!
Spoon the chocolate mixture in to the heart molds making sure that you don’t overfill like I do.. haha Tap the mold on the counter to release any bubbles and so that the chocolate fills in to every corner of the mold. To speed things up I placed my molds in the fridge just until the chocolate set. With the flexible molds, the chocolate pops right out. If you overfilled the molds there may be some extra chocolate on the edging that you can simply trim off with a small pairing knife.
I also grabbed some cute Valentine packaging at the craft store to make a sweet package for my kids to hand to their teachers. Easy peasy Almond Cherry Chocolate Hearts and done in about 10 minutes. I have a couple more things that I am making this week so stay tuned for more recipes 🙂
Score!