Happy Valentines day yawl !
It’s officially that time of the year again! Restaurants are booked out, it’s raining couple photos and cheezy captions on my instagram feed, chocolate sales are probably through the roof and Khan market is flooded with fluffy red heart shaped pillows popping out of nearly every store window. How are you guys celebrating ? A conventional romantic date or a more new-agey netflix and chill situation or a girls night or… ? Or are you part of the cynics who see nothing fun or exciting about this day and blame valentines day for being ’not logical’? (To which, may i just say, there is something very very liberating about the illogical, so stop being a scrooge!)
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I’m not ashamed to admit that I am an ardent supporter of this day in all its mushy, corny glory. Its true. I wear pink, buy balloons, bake heart shaped cookies, make date plans and sing along to taylor swift songs on the radio - really basically embracing every cliche out there. Because WHY THE HELL NOT ? It’s a cutesy day and I’m very comfortable being sappy about stuff!
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This year, my valentines were my best friends, because a) they are the most comforting compensation for my new found singledom and b) they are incredibly talented (REALLY!!), so courtesy one of my old and closest friends Neim, I was able to make some pretty Valentinesy stuff using the most valentinesy ingredients of all time - chocolate and strawberries. Plus, the peeps from
sent me these really stunning champagne glasses and I couldn't resist using them - possibly the best valentines day present I've got this year!.
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Aanaand here's everything you need to know about tempering chocolate :
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- Take about 3 slabs of chocolate (We used around 350 grams). Break into little pieces.
- Place chocolate pieces in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir as it melts.
- Attach a candy thermometer and check temp marks
- Allow it to reach 120 ˚ C and then turn off the heat
- Immediate transfer chocolate to a cool marble slab. (It is important to use marble because it maintains a cooler temperature as opposed to most other materials)
- Pour chocolate onto the slab and spread it thin using a scraper
- Move in circular motions, like this:
- Continue doing this until the chocolate cools to about 70 ˚
- Transfer the tempered chocolate back into the bowl
- Dip a strawberry & coat with chocolate. It will harden within around 3 minutes.
- Eat and continue!
- You can also let the chocolate harden on the slab and use a scraper to make chocolate shavings or curls!
- Hope you all had a wonderful valentines day! Lots of love x x x
