Valentine’s Day

Making chocolate roses is a simple yet impressive Valentine’s Day project that I promise you can do. Because I did it, and believe me, that’s saying something. Chef and caterer Emily Kelley, of Florence, Alabama, demonstrated this recently for local American Association of University Women members. To make the dough, add 1/3 cup clear corn syrup to 10 ounces melted semi-sweet chocolate. Stir until doughy. On wax paper, flatten into circle and let harden between wax-paper sheets. To make roses, peel away wax paper and cut circle into triangles. Use one triangle for one rose. Pull pieces of dough from triangle and roll into balls. Using your hands, flatten balls into thin circles. For center stem of rose, roll one circle jelly-roll style. For rose petals, fold and shape chocolate circles around stem. Make these whenever you want, store at room temperature and use them to decorate your fabulous Valentine’s dessert. Or they can be your fabulous Valentine’s dessert — they’re completely edible and taste sort of like Tootsie Rolls. White chocolate and peanut-butter flavored baking morsels would also work, although Emily was unsure about corn-syrup ratios with those ingredients.