Anyone can just grab a heart-shaped box of chocolates off the store shelf to give to their sweetie at Valentine’s Day or “just because,” – but here’s a truly inspired idea to win the heart of the chocaholic you adore.
How about a bar of luscious Belgian chocolate, fancied up with your own special DIY combination of fruit, nuts, and candies that you know your loved one craves? Even more exotic tastes, too, like gummy bears or bacon bits!
No joke, you’ve never seen bars like the by Chocomize via Zazzle. One delightful default, Peanut Butter Jelly Time Chocolate Bar shown here, decorates a slab of Belgian milk chocolate with a pretty blend of pretty red dried strawberries and juicy Gushers fruit candy, decadent butter-toasted peanuts, and dainty peanut-butter drops.
Oh my.
But that’s absolutely tame compared to some of the out-of-the-ordinary options you can pick from to create your own custom goodies. Start by choosing a base of milk chocolate, sinfully dark chocolate, or white chocolate, then go from there with up to 5 different toppings to embellish your sweet masterpiece.
(Each custom chocolate bar is about 3.5 inches wide and 6 inches long – that’s 3.5 ounces of pure indulgence.)
Toppings are where the real magic happens.
Now, there’s no way I could possibly list all the tasty add-ons you could choose to customize the bar of your dreams – well, I could, but that would just make both of us really hungry, right? But the long long list of chocolate bar toppings includes, for example, more than a few of my own favorite flavors and some that you might never think of trying:
- tiny red sugar candy hearts;
- Himalayan sea salt;
- crystallized rose petals and violet petals;
- mini marshmallows;
- dried cranberries, banana slices, blueberries, papaya dices, dried lemon peel, candied ginger, a whole tropical garden of sweet fruit bits;
- every kind of nut you can think of, from slivered almonds to organic cashews;
- colorful candies – Skittles, Nerds, candy corn, Sour Patch Kids, crushed peppermints, pop rocks, and lots more to surprise you;
- mini chipotles;
- 23 karat gold flakes (really!)
- and much, much more.
Nothing (but nuttin’) says lovin’ like custom chocolate, crafted with the combination of ingredients that you choose to suit your sweetheart or spouse.
The thing is, your choice will prove how closely you pay attention to them, to their likes and wants, and that you care enough to pass by the off-the-shelf boring old gifts and do something truly creative and romantic to mark the occasion. Add a hand-printed card that says something like “You’re my one-of-a-kind Valentine” and , who knows, maybe a piece of Highly Significant Jewelry (ring, ahem!) and you’re in, babycakes.