It’s that time of year when pink and red are everywhere, along with a healthy dose of chocolate.
15 Valentine’s Day Favorites include:
Festive Cookies
1. Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting – Soft and chewy, fast, easy, and foolproof
2. Dark Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cookies Stuffed with Chocolate Covered Strawberries – Rich dark chocolate cookies with surprises stuffed into the center
3. Cranberry and White Chocolate Chip Cookies – One of my favorite cookies on my site, they’re soft and chewy, and the flavor combo is a favorite
4. Chewy Sugar Sprinkles Cookies – Nothing says fun on Valentine’s Day than sprinkles baked right into a chewy, buttery, soft sugar cookie
5. Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookies with Peanut Butter Cups and M&Ms – So many of favorite ingredients all in one deep-dish cookie
6. Maraschino Cherry White Chocolate Cookies -Similar to #3 above and I because I love cherries, I wanted to bake them right in. The cookies are soft, sweet, and scrumptious
Bars and Pastries
7. Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars with Pink Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting – I love bars because they’re so much faster, easier, and more foolproof to make than cookies and these taste like the cookies of the same name but much faster to make
8. Creamy Cherry and Lemon Bars – Almost cheesecake-like in nature and no white or brown sugar was added
9. Pink Lemonade Freezer Bars – A sweet and tangy no-bake treat that’s also salty and sweet. The crust and crumble topping are made with buttery Ritz crackers, complementing the creamy pink lemonade filling
10. Strawberry Jelly Rolls – A handy shortcut you’ll never believe helps get these on the table in 15 minutes
11. 3 Musketeers Marshmallow Candy-Stuffed White Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream – Soft, fluffy, light and perfect for buttering up your Valentine
Candy and Fudge
12. Nutella Brownie Truffle Bites (no-bake with vegan and GF options) – All the decadence of truffles, minus the work of rolling them out one-by-one. They’re made in a pan and sliced and are rich and intensely chocolaty
13. Seven Minute Microwave Caramels (no-bake, gluten-free) – The recipe sounds too good to be true but it works and produces my favorite caramels of all time. No candy thermometer required and hassle-free
14. Ritz Cracker Stuffed Peanut Butter Cups (No Bake, Vegan) – Homemade cups are easy and you can fill them with what your Valentine enjoys. Try a layer of caramel, marshmallow, or jelly to go with the peanut butter
15. White Chocolate Peanut, Pretzel, and Chocolate Chip Fudge – For those who like salty and sweet treats, as well as smooth yet crunchy, this quick and easy fudge has you covered
What are you making for your Valentine or for yourself?
Any Valentine’s plans?
My daughter’s birthday coincides with this time of year, and it’s been a sea of pink cakes, cookies, and pink party favors. Her favorite color is pink and between Valentine’s Day and her birthday, we live and breathe pink this time of year.
We have zero Valentine’s Day plans and it falls on a school night and my idea of a romantic Valentine’s evening would be putting everyone to bed early and me curling up with a mug of this in one hand and my remote control in another, and catching up on my DVR’ed Bravo shows like Top Chef, Millionaire Matchmaker, and the Real Housewives. And if I had another free hand, it would be holding a spoon that’s being dipped frequently into this.
Thanks for the $100 Gift Card and Special K Prize-Pack Giveaway entries
Well, tonight Dad and I made a chocolate cake for Mom. It was a surprise, and she got home to a house filled with the sweet smell of cooking chocolate! She picked up some Thai on the way home for dinner, and that was it. Nothing very exciting. Welll…..the cake was a little exciting. Dad sent me to the store to find some hazelnut flour, and I brought some back…but we didn’t realize until the cake was in the oven that I hadn’t gotten hazelnut, but ALMOND flour! Luckily it still tasted wonderful. That would have been interesting, for Mom to walk in on a ruined cake -_-;
That was a lucky break!
Jason and I don’t even celebrate Valentine’s day but I still want to make this all for him! I’m sure he would appreciate it very much.
We don’t celebrate formally anymore. A card and that’s about it…I mean a trip to Godiva and Tiffany would be nice but not realistic :)
Oh, my stars (again)! Averie, you selected such perfect sweet treats for V-day! Immediately, I am running over to your post for Strawberry Jelly Rolls and some cookies as well as that pretzel, peanut and white chocolate fudge concoction! Girl, our taste buds and hunger pangs are nearly identical. Hubby and I are doing casual this year (hate going out on the 14th), so we’re making a total weekend of it. I enjoy cooking for him for “date-night in” on Valentine’s Day and he, in turn, enjoys taking me out after the holiday. Doing Mexican this year…enjoying Margaritas in glasses as big as our faces. WOOT!
Made the “strawberry cake” cookies for my kids and they literally went wack-o. You can’t bring home made treats to school, only store bought, so it was cute to see them strategize how to sneak them in to their classmates! Thank you!
I’m so glad you tried them! And your kids (and maybe their classmates) enjoyed them too :) Thanks for LMK you made them!
those pink lemonade bars are speaking to me again!
hope your daughter has a happy happy birthday. Hubby is cooking for the family on Valentine’s Day…so I am going to love a homemade meal prepared for me. I so love Top Chef…your idea sounds perfect to me as well! I am reading Yes Chef right now…memoir by Chef Marcus Samuelsson and I know you are a fan of his from your Barbados Food & Wine festival post…SO thinking you would love the book…curl up with a cup of that and spoon of this :-)
So many great treats! Hope you have a good Valentine’s Day and your daughter has a lovely birthday :)
That sounds like a wonderful valentine’s day! We may have a chocolate or two, but nothing special in this home either!