So Valentine’s Day is over. Whether you had a romantic evening with your significant other or embraced the single life with way more sugar than any human should ever consume, the fact of the matter is that we have a whole year until that fateful holiday is back to haunt us. However, your leftover chocolate won’t last that long, so rather than throwing it away (or worse, eating it all yourself) make one of these super easy recipes.
1. Hot Chocolate
Photo by Christine Chang
Heat up milk in a mug and drop a couple pieces of chocolate into it. Stir and watch the milk magically turn into yummy hot cocoa.
2. Cookies
Photo by Christine Chang
Substitute chocolate chips in cookies with chopped up Valentine’s chocolate of your choice. Or add chocolate to something that doesn’t call for it (let’s be honest, there are very few desserts that aren’t immediately made better with chocolate).
3. Truffles
Photo by Christine Chang
These elegant little treats are actually way easier to make than most people realize. Most recipes consist of just melting chocolate with some cream or condensed milk and vanilla, and then shaping them into balls and refrigerating. Wanna get fancy? Add chopped nuts, coconut flakes, sea salt, sprinkles, etc.
4. Chocolate-Covered Almonds
Photo by Christine Chang
Melt chocolate in the microwave or on the stove, and either dip almonds into the mixture or pour the heated chocolate over the almonds. Let cool on parchment paper and store in an air-tight container. You can also do this with strawberries, frozen bananas, pretzels, etc.
5. Trail Mix
Photo by Christine Chang
This couldn’t be easier. Get together your favorite trail mix ingredients, chop up some leftover chocolate and throw it all together. Voilà!
Other ideas:
1. Drizzle melted chocolate over popcorn, a fruit salad, ice cream or baked goods.
2. Mix chopped chocolate into pudding, ice cream, or pancake/muffin/cake batter.
3. Use melted chocolate like Nutella. Chocolate and peanut butter sandwich anyone?
4. Seal chocolate in an air-tight Ziploc bag. It can keep in the freezer for a couple months. Thaw at room temperature.