Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The obligatory Valentine's day post...

Yesterday was Valentine's day. Personally, I love it, for the following reasons:
  • #1 I have a sweet tooth. 
  • #2 I love making cards. 
  • #3 I love getting mail. 
  • #4 Flowers are beautiful. 
  • #5 Random little presents in February make me happy (both giving and receiving).
  • #6 I have a dear hubby who gave me flowers that satisfied both #'s 1 and 4 above.

So, my Valentine's baking consisted of cream-cheese frosting filled strawberries and mocha cupcakes with espresso buttercream frosting. Oh. my. sweet. sweet. tooth. Here's the rundown:

Filled Strawberries
  • Cream cheese frosting of your choice (mine was simply cream cheese, powdered sugar, a little vanilla)
  • Strawberries - washed, stems sliced off, and "X"s cut through from the pointy-end almost to the flat side, but not slicing through
  • Sprinkles
  • Melted chocolate for drizzling
  • Holiday-colored M & Ms for garnish
Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream Frostingas seen on My Baking Addiction. I'm not going to re-post the recipe, I'm just going to reiterate: Oh. my. sweet. sweet. tooth. I found the batter to be unusually runny for cupcakes, so as I waited impatiently for the timer to beep, I worried that my dessert masterpiece was already a flop. Wrong. Moist cupcakes with a hint of coffee, smothered in the richest espresso frosting you can imagine. Topped with dark chocolate-covered espresso beans - yes, please! I went running shortly after finishing these. And again the next day. Yet I feel like there is still buttercream frosting running through my veins.

Last, but far from least, you can see some tiny heart candies pictured above. These would be Petit Sour Hearts by Jelly Belly. My mom stumbled across them several years ago and gave them to me for this fine holiday of sugar. My mouth waters just thinking about them. They are, hands down, my favorite candy. Never, I tell you, never pass them up if you are lucky enough to stumble across them. (Thank you, Mom, for BOTH bags that you gave me this year.)
Happy Valentine's Day to one and all. Happy Valentine's Day to my life-loving baby girls. And Happy Valentine's Day to my wife-loving husband. I could definitely feel the love this year!
We got engaged on Valentine's Day 2006, married in Maui that July.

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