Happy Valentine's Day!

Please enjoy this virtual box of chocolates, from the the Valentine's Day collection that I offered through my fledgling business.
Top row: salty caramel, passionfruit, hazelnut praline. And in the center with the hearts, strawberry-balsamic.

The salty caramel is based off of this recipe from Epicurious. I used 2 tsp of coarse gray sea salt and only cooked it to 240 degrees. I used a very high bf content cream and butter, which made for a really nice texture and flavor to the caramel.

For the passionfruit, it's 4 ounces of chocolate, 3 ounces of cream, and just under an ounce of passionfruit concentrate.

The hazelnut praline recipe is from the new Andrew Garrison Shotts book. Caramelize some sugar, pour it over some toasted hazelnuts, and then let that cool. Break it into pieces and puree them in a food processor until it becomes a paste. The praline paste is then mixed with a little bit of milk chocolate and some cocoa butter for the filling. Very assertive and interesting flavor.

The strawberry balsamic was inspired by the Shotts book as well, although I made a lot of changes. There's a layer of strawberry pate de fruit on the top, and then a layer of dark chocolate balsamic vinegar ganache below. On the left, you can see what it looks like on the inside. The method is rather complicated, so I'm not going to post it here, but feel free to comment or email me if you want the recipe.

Here's hoping your Valentine's Day is sweet!