Share the love with these luscious bonbons.
Photo courtesy Choclatique.com.

An assortment of luscious, artisan-made, heart-shaped chocolates is a classic Valentine gift. There are even sugar-free options.

The all-natural chocolate hearts are packaged in a reusable leather gift box tied with your choice of colored ribbon. There are solid dark chocolate hearts plus delectable flavors:

Amaretto Latte, Black Cherry Caramel, Cafe Au Lait, Creamy Cappuccino, Grand Marnier, Hot Cocoa, Irish Cream Coffee, Mandarin Orange Caramel, Minty Julep, Passion Fruit Caramel, Saigon Cinnamon Caramel and Strawberries ’n Cream.

 
SUGAR FREE HEARTS

The company’s delicious Sweet Deceit line, sugar free, has solid dark and milk hearts assortments in 8, 15 and 30 pieces, $20 to $65. See the sugar-free chocolate hearts.

We recently spent a month undergoing a kitchen renovation. We ordered in a lot of Chinese food and ended up with a lot of uneaten fortune cookies.

It’s a problem bigger than us: Over the past month, 8,100 people searched Google for “what to do with fortune cookies.”

Rather than toss them out, we were inspired by this photo of peanut butter-stuffed fortune cookies from the Nutropolitan Museum Of Art, an art gallery of uber-creative ways to use peanut butter. It’s the concept of Lee Zalben, owner of Peanut Butter & Co., a New York City peanut butter restaurant.

It’s not easy to pry fortune cookies apart, but you can take them apart in pieces, remove the paper fortune, and still have enough of a cavity to stuff as a snack. In addition to peanut butter or PB&J, consider:

Break fortune cookies in half, remove fortune, fill, and eat. Photo by Andrea Hernandez | Peanut Butter & Co.

 
 
DIP INTO CHOCOLATE

Then there are chocolate-dipped fortune cookies. A coating of chocolate transforms a ho-hum fortune cookie into a real treat. You can turn dipping and decorating into an hour of entertainment for adults or kids.

Get out the fondue pot and melt the chocolate—chocolate chips are easy, but we prefer gourmet chocolate bars. Provide dishes of sprinkles, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms, and other garnishes (we cut up candied orange peel—the result was heavenly).

And don’t forget waxed paper and food storage bags, so guests can take home what they make.

Fortune cookies can be quite versatile when turned into crumbs or larger broken pieces.

 
Suggestions? We’d love to add to this list.

MAKE YOUR OWN FORTUNE COOKIES

Want to bake your own? Heres a delicious fortune cookies recipe.
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

The chocolates and confections are made by hand in small batches, using the finest ingredients. When we first saw Byrne & Carlson’s wares at a trade show, we were enchanted by the beauty of their chocolate bars, decorated with edible flowers. It was the first time we’d ever seen such creative garnishing, and the chocolatiers set the standard for all others to come.

Made from the finest chocolate couverture, the chocolate bars a delectable and beautiful Valentine’s Day gift.
TO PLACE AN ORDER

There is no e-commerce, but it’s easy to order:

From top to bottom: Violet Bar with candied violets and mint leaves, Venezuelan Bar with crushed cacao nibs, Mendiant Bar with almonds, orange peel, pansy and candied violet petals. Photo courtesy Byrne & Carlson.