It’s the first week of February and it is the most romantic month of the year! The entire month’s theme is love is all around us. We thought it would be fitting to share our favourite valentine’s day recipes. On valentine’s day every year, EC Montreal hosts a chocolate festival and the “piece de resistance” at the festival is our chocolate fountain. The fountain is placed in the center of the student lounge and we have a variety of foods for students to dip in the luscious chocolate. We prepare skewers of strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, pound cake and grapes.
Every single table in the lounge is filled with the most delicious chocolate treats including cakes, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, candy and drinks.
So, in honour of EC Montreal’s annual chocolate festival, I am happy to share three of the most popular chocolate festival sweets. The first are chocolate covered strawberries. They are so easy to make and look so fancy. They look so beautiful on any dessert table and make such a lovely gift when placed in a decorative box. For my version of chocolate covered strawberries, you will need the following ingredients and supplies:
• a pint of large strawberries
• 1 package of milk chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• wax paper
• wooden skewers
• sprinkles
Place the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Pour the vegetable oil in with the chocolate. Stir the chips until they are all coated in the oil. Place in the microwave until melted. Stir the mixture until it is smooth and lump free. Make sure the strawberries are dry. Put a strawberry on the skewer and dip it in the chocolate until it is covered leaving the stem uncovered. Place the strawberry on wax paper to dry. Before the chocolate dries sprinkle them with decorative candy.
One of the most festive drinks we serve at the festival are our chocolate martinis. We serve them in martini glasses and the students absolutely love them. They don’t have any alcohol, but if you are preparing them at home, you can make the alcohol version.
For my “at home” version of the chocolate martini, you will need the following ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup
• 4 oz of vodka
• 4 oz of bailey’s
• 4 oz of chocolate liqueur
• crushed ice
• chocolate sprinkles
Pour some of the chocolate syrup on a flat dish and line the rim of the glasses with the syrup. Drizzle syrup in the glasses. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, vodka, bailey’s and chocolate liqueur. Shake the mixture while counting to fifty. Pour the drink into the martini glasses and top with the chocolate sprinkles.
The non-alcoholic version is made with chocolate milk, hazelnut extract and sprinkles.
We will be sharing valentine’s themed recipes the entire month of February. We will be posting them on Microsoft Teams where you can access EC Montreal’s virtual lessons. Cheers and enjoy!
