Valentine

I broke more than one heart this Valentine's Day. Don't worry, they were made of chocolate. This year, instead of candy, I gave cupcakes to my Valentines. I was inspired by a box of chocolates: the cakes were dark chocolate, frosted with milk chocolate ganache, and topped with white chocolate hearts. I love working with ganache because, aside from being delicious enough to eat with a spoon (not that I do, of course...), it is ridiculously easy to both make and use. All you need is heavy cream, which you boil, and chocolate. The hot cream melts the chocolate, and when stirred, the mixture forms a smooth and shiny substance which tastes exactly like, what else, a piece of chocolate. To frost, one simply dunks a cupcake into the ganache. As a college student, anything that makes baking quicker and easier without compromising on taste is a plus. The hearts were made of melted white chocolate and a piping bag. You can't see it so much in the picture, but once they were hardened and cooled, I brushed the hearts with pearly white shimmer powder. One of my friends commented that she didn't even think they were edible at first. I also sprinkled the tops of the cupcakes with the same shimmer dust, which gave them a sparkly, speckled appearance. The hearts and the sparkles looked really beautiful against the dark shiny frosting.