Anatomical Chocolate Hearts (Your Unique Valentine, pt. 2)

Problem: Boring, inaccurate chocolate Valentine's hearts.

Solution: Anatomical handmade chocolate Valentine's hearts!

(possible side effect: appetite loss)

Step 1: Get your stuffs

Ingredients
Required:
Melting chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate bars, or some other kind of melt-able chocolate.

Optional:
White chocolate
Butterscotch chips
Peanut butter chips
Food coloring
Peanut Butter
Confectioner's sugar
Other truffle-like fillings

Equipment
Human Heart mold
A double boiler (or two pots of different sizes)
Wax paper
spoons

(optional)
lollipop sticks
red foil
anatomical heart-shaped box


Some things to note:
-If you have a double boiler, great. If not, you can put an inch or two of water in a pot, put some jar rings in the bottom, and the put another smaller pot inside the first pot.
-Some confectionery companies (such as Welton) make candy-making chips just for this very purpose. I haven't used them, but I suspect they are easier to work with but don't taste quite as good as high quality chocolate
-A google search of "human heart candy mold" will return a couple retailers who will sell you this obscure item. I purchased mine through a large website named after an even larger South American river basin. There are also brains, ears, skulls, fingers, and rats. You can also make your own mold.

Comments

[Bindlestiff]

Best Valentine's gift ever!

[dehlome]

The pardox of hearts!

[Spookty]

The are AWESOME! I'm not much into Valentine's Day, but goddamn if I wouldn't love to get these from my boyfriend.

[lisadesigns]

Be careful, if your coloring is water based, you'll seize the chocolate. Make sure it's oil based (they're usually called candy colors, or something like that).

[Bindlestiff]

I used gel coloring (Wilton brand) but I think that is made for coloring royal icing. It caused the white chocolate to start to firm up while it was still hot, but it was still workable.

[lisadesigns]

Love the heart box, btw!

[lisadesigns]

Yes, that's made for coloring icing (royal icing, buttercream, anything like that). It most likely has water in it which will start to seize (firm up) the chocolate. If you add enough, it will make it completely unusable-it's like it turns back into solidified chocolate, only kind of chunky. Sounds like you used such a small amount that it was still relatively ok, luckily!

[thepelton]

Funny! I wonder if you could make them hollow, and fill them with a deep red cherry syrup?

[Eirinn]

Fill it up half way and make sure to cover the sides a bit, freeze it - add the filling - freeze it, add the chocolate - freeze it. At least that is what i'd do. Maybe cut down on the steps since it's hard for me to visualize how many times you need to freeze to get the best result.

[Bindlestiff]

@Eirinn

Part of why its confusing is that I tried to give instructions for both the peanut butter cups and for just chocolate. If you're just using chocolate, you only need to fill the mold then put it in the freezer.

[rainbuilder]

maybe if you got a marble (or something small and shperical) and put it inside of the mold. then inject it with the syrup. i dont have an idea for that.

[Euphy]

Sugar fondant centres can be made by dripping some invertase (enzyme) onto a sugar cube (probably with some red colouring), and then coating it in the chocolate while it's still hard. The enzyme breaks down the sugar crystals into goo inside!

[shesparticular]

Very cute idea! Just a note, it's easier to add fillings to a chocolate mold if you add some to the mold, spread it around and then invert the mold and let the extra spill out (leaving a shell on the mold). After it sets up, add your filling and then top the mold.

[Bindlestiff]

Thanks for the tip!

[Biggsy]

Now if only I had someone to send me something this awesome next week *sigh*

[happyjo]

Nice!