Valentine's Day treats

Hit the sweet spot with these Valentine’s Day treats

Homemade + Chocolate = Valentine’s Day success.

Try these easy recipes and share a little love around.

When choosing chocolate for cooking, know your percentages. Basically, all chocolates contain various ratios of cocoa powder, cocoa fat and sugar.

The cocoa content is listed as a percentage. So “70%” refers to chocolate with 70% cocoa and cocoa fat and the remaining 30% sugar. The percentage indicates the balance between chocolate flavour and sweetness. The higher the percentage, the more bitter the chocolate.

For most baking, I use a chocolate with around 58% cocoa content.

Start with my fudgy chocolate brownies. Such a simple recipe, all made in one pot. The important principle for a perfect brownie is to get the baking time right; undercooked and it’s too gooey, overcooked and it’s cake. For moist and delicious brownie, you will need to take it out of the oven whilst it’s still very moist. A skewer inserted will be covered with lots of gooey crumbs. The top should be set, risen and slightly cracked.

For more baking, try the baci di dama (ladies kisses). These delicate little hazelnut and lemon flavoured biscuits are sandwiched together with dark chocolate. I prefer to use a bitter dark chocolate with a 70% cocoa content, but any good quality chocolate will do.

To spice things up, finish with my chilli chocolate truffles. The chilli adds warmth to the chocolate without being overwhelming. It’s a flavour combination that really works.

Hope these hit the sweet spot.

Fudgy chocolate brownies

Everyone should have a dependable brownie recipe. It’s important to get the baking time right, so check regularly with a skewer until the mixture looks set, yet still moist and slightly gooey.

250g unsalted butter

125g dark chocolate (58% cocoa content), chopped

2 cups caster sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup plain flour

¼ cup dutch cocoa

½ tsp salt

125g toasted walnuts, chopped

¼ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180C fan forced (200C conventional).

Lightly grease and line a 180 x 280mm rectangular shallow cake pan.

Heat butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon.

Remove from heat and stir in sugar.

Beat in eggs, one at a time and stir in vanilla.

Sift in dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly blended.

Stir in walnuts. Pour into prepared pan and sprinkle over the chocolate chips.

Bake for 45 - 50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out covered with lots of gooey crumbs. At this stage, remove from oven and allow to cool completely in pan.

Cut into rectangles.

Makes about 28.