Strawberry Cheesecake Bites – Homemade Pralines Recipes

Homemade Pralines – a Perfect Ending to Valentine’s Day Dinner

I have noticed that time flies merely for me. Not so long ago I was getting ready for Christmas, tomorrow it’s already Valentine’s Day. Each year I try to come up with a new recipe for that particular day and this year couldn’t be any different. Unfortunately, I have been swamped recently, and I have realised I don’t have much time to experiment and test many different recipes. So I knew it had to be something easy, almost fool-proof, with a very high probability of success.

Many cooks use ingredients that are aphrodisiac when they create their Valentine’s menu. However, I concentrate more on the look of the food for that occasion. That’s why the colour (red or pink) or the shape (heart) is so important to me for my Valentine’s recipes.

A few weeks ago I bought lyophilised strawberries. They seemed perfect for that occasion. I just wasn’t sure at the beginning whether I should use them for biscuits or homemade pralines. In the end, pralines recipes won. After all having chocolate, an aphrodisiac, as another ingredient was an added value.

Strawberry Cheesecake Bites – How to Ensure a Great Success?

To prepare these Strawberry Cheesecake Bites (homemade pralines), you will need only 4 ingredients so make sure they are of the best quality you can get. It especially applies to the strawberry jam: you need a thick and very aromatic one that will give not only lovely colour but also great taste. I used my homemade jam made from this recipe.

The preparation of the homemade chocolates is very easy, but you may find these hints useful:

• When you are forming walnut-size balls from the mascarpone and jam mixture, use two teaspoons.
• Keep the balls in the freezer for at least 2 hours on two plates. You want them to be very hard when you coat them in chocolate, and they do get soft pretty quickly. So when you are working on the lot from the first plate, the second one should still be in the freezer.
• Don’t wait with the decoration till all of the pralines are done. The chocolate sets on the cold filling pretty quickly.

There is also another hint I can share with you. The pralines are delicious but they are also quite heavy: I am not sure you can have more than two at a time. But that’s, in truth, great news. You don’t have to make a dessert for Valentine’s Day because two Strawberry Cheesecake Bites will satisfy even the biggest dessert lover.