Happy Valentine's Day!

I made a fun treat earlier this week as a surprise for Ben for Valentine's Day. There is an Italian chocolate candy called Baci (pronounced "bah-chee." it means "kisses.") It is one of Ben's favorites and I have only found it in the States a couple of times. I was excited to find this recipe so I could make them for him. I sometimes have a hard time coming up with meaningful gifts so I was really happy to have a fun surprise that I knew he would love.
It was literally an all day project so I had to pick a day when I knew Ben wasn't coming home for lunch. It started with roasting the hazelnuts. I was able to find these at a health food store.

Once they've cooled you rub them between a clean kitchen towel to get the skins off.

It took a while.

But I finally got them all done.

Then, you set aside some of the whole nuts and pulverize the rest.

Take some yummy milk chocolate.

It gets pulverized too.

Next, you pour hot cream over the chopped up chocolate.
You let it sit for a few minutes and then stir it up nice and smooth.

Then, you chop up some butter and mix that in with the chocolate and cream. If you are thinking about calories right now, please stop. It's ruining the moment. :)

After the butter is mixed in and melted you add the pulverized hazelnuts and stir.

Mmmmm.

You let that chocolatey-creamy-buttery-hazelnutty mixture sit in the fridge for about 3 hours to firm up. You may perform quality control checks during this time but it is wise to limit them to every 15 minutes or less if possible. Otherwise, you may find that product volume will decrease significantly, impacting the final production outcome.

I had a tough quality control manager so we did lots of extra checks to make sure everything was up to standards.

Once the mixture has firmed up, you coat your hands in cocoa and roll out 50 balls (or less depending on the frequency of your QC checks).

Pause to lick out the bowl and think happy thoughts.
Add a whole hazelnut to the top of each little ball.

Yes, then you break out more chocolate. Dark this time.

You chop it up, melt it and then start dipping those little balls in it. I was partway through this process when Ben called to tell me he'd be coming home 45 minutes early from work. Panic!! I worked as fast as I could to finish up, clean up and get rid of the chocolate smell.

After they have set up in the fridge you wrap them up in these little candy foils.

Ta-dah!

Just as good as the real thing.

Happy Valentine's Day!