Archive for: heart

Breakfast in bed for Valentine’s Day

There are many ways to celebrate Valentine’s day. For instance, you can give flowers, buy chocolates and go out to dinner. But these are the same old things that everyone else does. My vote this Valentine’s Day is for being a little more original by baking up some homemade treats and starting the day off with breakfast in bed. It is romantic and fun, and very budget-friendly compared to some of the other Valentine’s options!

• Start off with some freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee. You can even make the coffee a little more exciting by making a Chocolate Truffle Coffee, a rich chocolate drink that actually allows you to combine Valentine’s day truffles and coffee. A homemade Tea Latte would be a good start for anyone who prefers tea over coffee.
• Next, make some eggs and toast. You could serve the eggs scrambled or fried with a side of toast, but combining the two into Valentine’s Day Eggs-in-Toast, also known as toad-in-the-hole, makes for a very cute and holiday appropriate presentation.
• Red Velvet Pancakes are a real showstopper for breakfast on Valentine’s Day, but you can easily make any pancakes into heart shapes to put a little more love on the plate. You can pipe the batter into hearts using a large-tipped pastry bag or a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off, or simply “draw” a heart with a large spoonful of batter.
• You don’t really need dessert after a big breakfast, but a few Chocolate Covered Strawberry Biscotti would be a nice finishing touch and a great treat to much as you savor the rest of your coffee after breakfast.

Valentine’s Day is on a weekday this year, so get up a little early before work or simply leave a little bit later than usual. A romantic breakfast is the perfect way to start off the day.

Wilton Micro Heart Sprinkles

One of the easiest ways to dress up a cake or cookies for a holiday is to top them off with some colorful sprinkles. I am always tempted by the seasonal sprinkles that hit the baking aisle during the holidays – trees for Christmas, bats at Halloween and hearts at Valentine’s Day – but I rarely end up using the sprinkles. The reason is that those specialty sprinkles are usually large, crunchy affairs that add color but start to detract from the texture of your baked goods. I was suckered in by these Wilton Micro Heart Sprinkles,  the last time I was out shopping for baking supplies and, for once, I was very happy with how the sprinkles turned out! These incredibly cute hearts are teeny tiny and come in red, white and pink. They are bright and festive looking, and the quality (at least in my batch) was very consistent, with no misshapen sprinkles. They are crunchy and slightly sweet, but they are so small that they didn’t distract from the flavor or the texture of the cupcakes that I decorated with them. I will definitely be using these on other Valentine’s Day goodies this year – not just relegating the container to the back of the pantry to be forgotten about.

I spotted these at stores like Target, Michaels and at a few grocery stores, so they should be relatively easy to find, but they are also available online if you’re looking for something simple to dress up your Valentine treats.