Love is in the Air

... or at least it's in my cookies.

Since today is officially the beginning of Valentine's Day Week (I just made that up, so don't try to verify it anywhere online), I thought I should start making themed cookies. Of course, chocolate had to be an ingredient (not only because of it's fabulous taste, but also because it's pretty much tied in to Valentine's Day -- at least as advertised by Hallmark). They weren't exceptionally hard to make,  but the decorating took a little longer than expected.

The actual cookies are coconut shortbread cookies, covered in chocolate ganache (which, due to my frequent use of it, I'll give y'all the recipe for it in a little bit), and decorated with pink chocolate. I've had two so far (because otherwise all my cookies wouldn't have fit nicely on the tray), and I thought they were delicious. We'll see the reviews the cookies get at school when I take them up there.

My advice for y'all: if you haven't baked before, or you're not overly confident in the kitchen but still want to start baking more, take baby steps. You could, for example, buy ready-made cookies and then cover them yourself in chocolate ganache. Or, so the final product isn't too sweet, you could just buy English tea biscuits and cover them in ganache and proceed. When I first started making cupcakes, I often just used cake mix and then, slowly, as I got more confident, I started actually making everything from scratch. Now, I've moved on to not even following recipes all the time, but making my own up. Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

So here is the result of today's culinary adventure:

As you can see, I had a little bit of trouble with the decorating and not all my designs look perfect. But it's the imperfections that make these cookies so special. After all, Valentine's Day is based on being able to look past the imperfections, right?

Anyhow, here is the chocolate ganache recipe I promised:

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

1/3 cup whipping cream

Heat up the whipping cream until it's boiling, then pour it on top of the chocolate chips. Stir. It will go from looking like poorly mixed chocolate milk to a nice creamy, chocolate-y goodness. Just keep stirring until it's homogeneous in texture. It is delicious. Also, try to use it as quickly as possible, so it doesn't harden in the bowl instead of on top of your cookies. You can store it in the fridge, too, if you have leftovers. 

Good luck in your baking adventures, everyone.

Next time... Fish Tacos!