Making Heart-Shaped Chocolate Candies Without a Mold

You know, this is just how my mind works. I think about the great products out there, then try to think of a way around buying them. Owning a heart-shaped silicone candy mold would be a nice thing to have, but in truth, I would only use it one day per year. The other night I was thinking, "how could I make my own heart-shaped candies for Valentine's Day?"

Here's how it went:
At first, I thought that maybe I could freehand some melted chocolate with a piping bag. I tried one, and then realized that I did need some sort of guide, a template.

To make heart-shape chocolate candies, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips, red candy melts, white chocolate chips, Crisco shortening, 3 snack-size ziploc baggies, 1 sheet of waxed paper, 1 sheet of white paper, scissors, pen, small bit of scrap paper.

To make a template, I cut a paper heart out of the scrap paper and traced its outline onto the sheet of white paper.

On the kitchen counter, I laid a sheet of waxed paper over my template. 
I used the baggies as piping bags, one for each color of chocolate, snipping a tiny corner off of each before filling with melted chocolate. In a glass measuring cup, I melted 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with about 1/2 teaspoon of Crisco. I used my microwave and melted in short 10-15 second bursts, stirring with a table knife in between bursts. When the chocolate was melted I scooped it into one of the prepared baggies.

I piped the outline of the heart onto the waxed paper which was over the template, following the lines of the heart.

I filled the outline in with more piped chocolate. (This is the single larger heart that I made. After my first heart, I decided to make a smaller template in order to make hearts the size of a Dove chocolate piece. So I made a smaller template.)

To make multiple hearts, I slid the template around under the sheet of waxed paper. Whenever the chocolate became too thick to pipe smoothly I put the baggie of chocolate into a custard cup and microwaved for about 6 to 9 seconds.

The hearts were thin, so I decided to build up the hearts with a second layer of chocolate. I added the second layer inside the outline of the hearts by about 1/8-inch. You can see the difference between a single layer heart and the built up heart in the photo below.

I didn't worry about how neat the hearts looked as I had a plan for concealing the messiness -- add some deliberate messiness in contrasting colors!

I let the hearts firm up while taking care of other tasks. 

Next, I melted some red Wilton Candy Melts. I have these leftover from last summer when I planned on making red, white, and blue dipped pretzel rods. I had a coupon for JoAnn Fabrics and the candy melts were on sale. However, the chocolate hearts could also be drizzled with just white chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, or a combo of both of those. Just so that the color contrasts with the semi-sweet chocolate hearts. Here are the hearts ready to be dressed up.

I only used about a dozen of the red wafers. It melted into about a 2 tablespoon pool. I scooped this into the 2nd prepared baggie. Before drizzling, I zapped the filled baggie in the microwave for about 6 seconds, to insure that it would flow easily. 

I drizzled in one directions, then turned the sheet of hearts around and drizzled in the other direction.

Following the red drizzle, I added a bit of white drizzle, using about 2 tablespoons of white chocolate chips and 1/4 teaspoon of Crisco melted in short 10 second bursts in the microwave. Again, just before drizzling, I zapped the filled baggie for about 6 seconds for a smooth flow. Whenever the tip became clogged, I either microwaved for additional few seconds, or cleared the clog by squeezing any hard lumps out of the bag on onto a bare spot on the waxed paper with my fingertip. 

As you can see, the imperfections of the semi-sweet hearts are concealed with the contrasting drizzle. After the hearts had set up, I used a paring knife to trim the edges a bit. For a first time go at these, I think they turned out nice. I am still working on how I'll package them, although I can tell you this much, I'll be just using what I have on hand for the packaging, which may include recycled cracker boxes, ribbon, and spray paint.

FYI, because of the white bloom that develops on candies made from packaged baking chips, they have a shelf-life based on best appearance (not taste or safety) of about 10 days. The white and red candy coating should maintain a good appearance for a longer period.

For this project, I used 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (68 cents), about 10 cents each of red and white chocolate candy, and about 1 cent of Crisco, for a total of 89 cents for 30 Dove-size small hearts and 1 larger heart, about 4.5 ounces of candies. I've made these as gifts for 3 people, so each gift cost under 30 cents. 

Making Valentine's Cards Using Clip Art

Valentine's Day truly is a "homemade" holiday in our house. Not only am I making some gifts, but I'm also making Valentine's cards, using free clip art. Clip art really makes card-making easy. As with other projects, I am using clip art from Graphic's Fairy. My Mac came preloaded with the apple word-processing program Pages. I also have MSWord on my laptop. However, I find pages is easier to manipulate images and transpose type over images. So, whenever I am using clip art, I choose Pages for my creating.

Things that Pages can do with which I have difficulty when using Word:

• duplicate images rapidly to create all-over patterns
• flip images vertically and horizontally, then adjust the angle of the image (for placing images on a diagonal)
• provide guidelines for placement of images
• overlay text on images without using a photo editor
• easily move images around without the text or other images jumping out of placement

Here are two Valentine's Day cards that I made using Pages. I used a combination of clip art, simple frames available on Pages, and text available on Pages. 

On the left, the filigree heart is a frame from Graphic's Fairy, and the roses are from Graphic's Fairy as well. I overlaid a text box to include the greeting. The shadow frame around the composition is an option on Pages. The floral bouquets are from 2 images. I duplicated and flipped each to obtain a mirror image effect. I also adjusted the angle on the floral images to suit my composition.

On the right, The retro heart and smaller heart pairs are images from Graphic's Fairy. I added the greeting banner using a text box with white fill, overlaying the message on the heart image. I adjusted the angle of the greeting with a simple Pages feature. The pair of hearts were plain, so I overlaid a text box with the message "You + Me" in white text. The large heart is surrounded with a simple frame available on Pages.

At the top of the full sheet is a custom "made by" emblem. I used images from the cards and text to create this. Pages allowed me to flip the text and small image upside down, so that once the card was folded, the "made by" emblem would be right-side-up.

The nitty-gritty. I was able to print 2 cards on 1 sheet of paper, using landscape orientation and cutting the sheet in half after printing. I only have black ink, so my cards are black and white. I had 1 print out that I thought needed adjustments before a final copy, meaning I printed 2 sheets. So, my copies were 3 cents each (paper and ink), or 6 cents total. That's 3 cents per Valentine's Day card. If I decide to make more of the same cards, then those Valentine cards drops to 1 and 1/2 cents per card.

A little project that I really enjoyed making, and it saved me some money.