Sweet Treats for Valentine's Day: Chocolate Puffs

Just like last year, this year my Valentine is out of town for work. I dropped him at the airport on Monday morning, and even though we'll have to wait until the weekend to celebrate, I prepared a special sweet treat  for my husband Lulu that he can enjoy during his business trip. I packed a bag of these chocolate puffs in his suitcase, and once he landed, I sent him a message to tell him his favorite chocolate treats were waiting for him.

The secret to making these soft, fluffy French cookies is to use finely ground steel cut oats, which was provided by Bob's Red Mill. I met their reps during the Fancy Food Show at their booth in San Francisco. The dough is flavored with cocoa powder and I added chocolate chips to reinforce the chocolate flavor.

Give this sweet treat to your sweetheart; I guarantee it will be a hit!

Masala Chai Eggnog Recipe

This weekend, in the spirit of the holidays, we wanted to make some eggnog. We’ve made eggnog and "soynog" so many times before that it seemed like time to mix it up a little. If you're a regular reader, you might know how much I love masala chai. I'm a weakling when it comes to caffeine but once in a while, especially when we have large family gatherings, we make loads of the fragrant chai and I just can't resist sipping a few cups. So why not combine the two?

Eggnog already has nutmeg, so adding the spices used in masala chai just enhances the flavor. The cardamom in particular really shines through. If you're adventurous (and not making this for kids), you could also spike it with a little rum or cognac. 

Double Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

If you love chocolate and hazelnuts, you're going to love these cookies I just created. Sunny, my husband's oldest sister (she's 16 now), promised her girlfriends she would bring some sweet treats to share with them at school, so I helped her out by making these decadent French-inspired cookies. 

Nutella serves as the base of the cookies, to which I added a layer of homemade hazelnut cream (frangipane-style) and a smattering of mini-chocolate chips. 

The cookies come out of the oven chewy, soft and sweet. And of course, irresistible! 

Our friends over at Nuts About Granola are featuring my Hawaiian-inspired granola bars on the new packaging of their Granola Basics and at the same time are giving away 3 copies of my upcoming book, Haute Potato, to their readers. Leave a comment at the bottom of Nuts About Granola Blog post and you might be one of the lucky winners!

Flourless Chile Chocolate Cake Recipe

Please welcome Lynda from Taste Food Blog. Lynda is a Paris Cordon Bleu graduate. After her culinary journey all over Europe (France, Switzerland, Great Britain and Denmark), she came back to the US 17 years later with a Danish husband and two children.

I recently started following her blog. The photographs are stunning and I love her approach to classic French dishes, many of which I grew up eating. Today she's sharing her chile chocolate flourless cake, especially for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!

This month, I have the pleasure of guest-posting on Jackie's wonderful blog, Pham Fatale. When I discovered Pham Fatale, it immediately resonated with me. It shares a similar love for feeding friends and family, while influenced by an international family and life. Jackie's Vietnamese parents, Parisian upbringing and vegetarian, sweet-loving husband create a kaleidoscope of good eats which keep me coming back for more. And with Valentine's Day fast approaching, I can't think of a more perfect way to share a little blog (and chocolate) love with her readers than with this recipe.

Flourless chile-chocolate cake promises to add a little spice to your Valentine's Day. Laced with chipotle, cayenne and cinnamon, this dense fudgy cake has a naughty kick of smoke and heat cloaked in chocolate that's both surprising and exciting. Now that's a Valentine's cake.

Chocolate Raspberry Cookie Recipe (Heart-Shaped Cookies)

Yesterday, my husband's sister Lya (she's a high-schooler now) told me she was secretly in love with a boy when she was in fifth grade. For Valentine's Day, she was too shy to say anything so she gave him heart-shaped chocolate cookies and a sock monkey anonymously. The guy never knew it was from her. Now that she goes to an all-girl school, I told her we should find the boy and give him the same Valentine presents. She said: "No way!", plus she's totally moved on from her first school crush. Ahh kids!

Of course, we still baked the cookies. I made a few changes by flavoring the chocolate cookie dough with raspberry extract and covered the top with raspberry chocolate. I used Hershey's raspberry kisses, which are available in stores this Valentine season.