Sending a little love out east

I remember when I was in University and my mom would send me care packages. Every now and then a box would show up with something I had forgotten, something I needed and a few treats from home. It made me feel a little less homesick. When Austin and I were talking about Valentine's Day, I told him that we would make special cards and send them in the mail. We happened to be making raisin bran muffins at the time (in a heart shaped pan!) and he asked if we could mail some. I decided that we would send a package to send to Aunt Janice. I had a lot of ideas and this was the perfect excuse to bake up a storm and package it up before consuming calories that my waistline really didn't need and Austin has loved helping get everything ready!

Here are our the treats. While they may look complicated and or time consuming, they really aren't. I love that Austin had his hand in helping with everything that we made.

"I Want S'More Lovin'!" Cookies

We made homemade marshmallow, coloured it pink and spread it on a cookie sheet to cool. I couldn't find graham flour so we made chocolate rolled cookies instead of graham crackers. If anyone knows where I can get graham flour in HRM, I would really appreciate it if you can let me know. Bulk Barn in Bedford doesn't carry it.

Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I spread the back of a cookie with melted chocolate and pressed a marshmallow cut in the same size heart to it. I then took another cookie, spread more chocolate to the back of it and pressed that on to the top of the marshmallow. At first I had dipped the small cookies into chocolate and covered them with love day sprinkles but I didn't have what I needed to do it right. I still have half a batch of dough to roll out so I will try to get it right with them. (Pictures to follow!)

"You make my heart Pop" popcorn


photo is from the Nest of Posies website

This is sooooo good. I promptly had it all packaged up so that I would eat anymore than the bite I had sampled to make sure it tasted okay. I used white chocolate chips instead of the melting wafers and Valentine's Smarties instead of M & M's. Next time I will add a nut of some kind. It is missing a salty crunch to round it all out.

"Be My Ooey Gooey Valentine!" Cookies

I started with the basic chocolate cookie recipe from this post at My Baking Addiction. I added 1/2 cup Skor toffee bits and 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips.  Austin scooped out the dough onto the cookie sheet. He then unwrapped caramel chocolate hearts and pressed one into each cookie. He is VERY good at that job! We sprinkled the cookies with a little Fleur de Sel (course sea salt will work too) and popped them in the oven. The caramel will ooze out of the heart. I froze them solid and it still happened so these are now ooey gooey cookies!

Cover my Heart!

Anything better than a homemade marshmallow? I didn't think so until we dipped them in milk chocolate and Austin added sprinkles. YUM!



Our goodies are all packed up, the box lovingly covered with stickers by sweet Aislynn and should arrive on the big day. Happy Valentine's Day Aunt Janice and Uncle Mark!