Opinion: 5 Pinterest treats to make your Valentine’s Day sweet
Alley Loope baked some of Pinterest’s cutest recipes to help you make this the sweetest Valentine’s Day yet.
//Photo by Alley Loope
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Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and we all know what that means… HEART SHAPED EVERYTHING! Everything is better when it’s in a special holiday themed shape, especially food. Whether you’re single and ready to snack yourself to death on a pink and red smorgasbord with your best pals, or you need to make some special treats for that special someone, the internet is full of thousands of different Valentine’s Day themed foods to make your holiday worthwhile. I’ve scoured the recipe wonderland, aka Pinterest, to find five of the best V-Day treats that would make Cupid himself want to come to your house for dinner.
- Cupid Floats
This was perhaps the cutest and easiest Pinterest recipe I’ve found to date. All you need is a couple of cute mugs, two ingredients, and bam! You’ve got yourself the perfect Valentine’s Day drink.
What you’ll need:
- Cherry soda (I used Cherry 7-Up)
- Vanilla ice cream (two scoops per float)
- A mug/cup to put it in
Just put two scoops of vanilla ice cream in each mug, pour in some cherry soda and that’s all there is to it. You can even spice them up by grabbing some pieces of red licorice and cutting off the ends to make homemade straws and adding some whipped cream on top. It’s simple, quick, easy and totally delicious.
Original recipe can be found here.
- Mini Heart Pizzas
Literally the cutest Valentine’s dinner you could possibly have, and they’re so incredibly easy to make!
You will need:
- Pizza dough (or a pre-made pizza crust)
- Shredded mozzarella cheese
- Pizza sauce
- Any other additional toppings you may want to use
- A heart-shaped cookie cutter
First off, roll out your pizza dough with a rolling pin, or open up your pre-made pizza crust. Next, use your heart cookie cutter to cut as many mini pizzas out as you can fit.
Lay those out on your pan, then spread as much pizza sauce as you want on each of them. Next comes my personal favorite: the cheese. Sprinkle as much mozzarella cheese as your heart desires (ha heart, get it?), which in my case is practically an entire bag. Then, load your pizzas up with whatever other toppings you want to use. Next, just pop them in the oven at 425 degrees for about 8-10 minutes, and voila! You’ve got yourself a tiny and totally tasty Valentine’s dinner.
Original recipe can be found here.
- Chocolate Covered Strawberry Hearts
These are so cute and totally perfect for Valentine’s because who doesn’t love chocolate covered strawberries? Also, strawberries are fruit, and fruit is healthy, so you can actually call this a healthy snack… right?
What you’ll need:
- Strawberries
- Chocolate (white, milk, dark, any kind just as long as it will melt)
- Toothpicks
- Wax paper
Start off by washing your strawberries, and then pat them down with a paper towel to remove all of the excess water. Then, pull off the stems and use a knife to cut each strawberry in half. Now, this is where it got kind of tricky for me. Put the two halves of the strawberry together to form a heart shape, and then stick a tooth pick through them to hold the shape as shown in the picture below.
Hopefully your hearts will look much neater than mine. I was forced to buy strawberries from the Walmart on campus, which we all know does not rank so highly on the quality produce scale.
Next, break up your chocolate and stick it in a microwave safe bowl. I always use Almond Bark for my chocolate-melting purposes, but really any kind of chocolate will do. Stick that in the microwave for about a minute, then pull it out and stir it around to make sure it’s all melted. You might need to stick it in for 30 or so more seconds.
Now lay your toothpick-ed strawberries out on a sheet of wax paper to prevent them from sticking once they’re covered in chocolate. Carefully spoon some chocolate over the strawberry hearts, and then gently spread it out as neatly as you can. I found using a butter knife worked really well for this part. Let the chocolate harden just a little bit, and then pull your toothpick out. Wait until your chocolate is fully dry, then your precious strawberry hearts are ready to serve!
Original recipe can be found here.
- Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies
These are by far my favorite (and most impressive if I do say so myself) Pinterest creations I have ever attempted to bake. They’re so amazing that I even had to arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing picture formation with their own props just so you could see how incredible they are, and realize how much you need these in your life every day, not just on Valentine’s Day.
What you’ll need:
- 1 box of red velvet cake mix
- 1/2 cup of melted butter
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon of boiling water
- 8 ounces of cream cheese
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
- 9X13 baking pan
- Mixer
To get started, preheat your oven to 350, and then grease your pan. Next, grab a bowl and fill it with the cake mix. IMPORTANT: ignore whatever directions are on the box of cake mix. Just poor the actual mix in the bowl. I came very close to making this mistake, and I know it’s stressful to ignore the directions, but just trust me… and trust Pinterest. Add in one egg, your melted butter and the boiling water, and then beat all of that together until it’s all mixed up. Your batter is going to look completely strange and be super sticky and annoying, but hey, it still tastes good if you want to lick the spoon. Pour the batter into your pan and spread it out nice and even.
Now, for the topping, put the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat it all together until it’s smooth and creamy. Take a spoonful of topping at a time, and drop it on top of the batter in the pan. Try to spread out where you put your drops, but don’t spread it all over the brownies just yet. Place your pan in the oven for about 10 minutes.
Now this is where the real fun starts. Pull the brownies out of the oven, and run a butter knife through the batter to swirl the cream cheese in with the red velvet until your pan looks like this:
Then pop them back in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until you see the topping starting to brown, and then let them cool completely before you cut them. These are best if you stick them in the fridge for a while before you eat them. Before that, be sure to take a few Insta pics to show off your new baking skills, because these brownies are prettier than I am and are sure to get you a lot of likes.
Original recipe can be found here.
- Red Velvet Oreo Hearts
These are basically a Valentine’s version of the ever-so-classic Oreo balls, which are definitely a holiday fan favorite. They’re super cute, and almost everyone already knows how to make them.
What you’ll need:
- Red Velvet Oreos (you can use regular Oreos too but these are festive and so SO tasty)
- 8 ounces of cream cheese
- White chocolate (I always use Almond Bark)
- Wax paper
- Small heart-shaped cookie cutter
Start by crushing up all of your Oreos. The easiest way to do this would be in a blender or a food processor, but for us poor college students who don’t own either one of those, it’s also pretty easy to put them in a bag and crush them up with your hands, or, if you’re feeling super wild, step on them. This could actually be a fun bonding experience for you and your valentine, just hanging out stepping on Oreos, or if you’re just super bitter about V-Day, you can even beat them with a rolling pin to take out your frustrations. It’s like baking and therapy all in one.
After you’ve thoroughly crushed up your pack of Oreos, mix them together with your cream cheese. Then, use a rolling pin (or a long skinny water bottle in my case), and roll the mixture out flat like dough. Stick that in the freezer for about half an hour. Then, use your cookie cutter to cut out heart shapes and stick them in the fridge to harden.
Next, break up your white chocolate and put it in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave it for about a minute, stir it all up to make sure it’s melted, then pull your Oreo hearts out of the fridge.
Dunk each heart in the melted chocolate until it’s covered, and then lay them out on the wax paper so the chocolate can harden. I chose to hold each heart by the corner and leave that part undipped so I would have a little red accent on each one (plus it was really hard to cover the whole heart in chocolate nicely if I didn’t hold them like that, but we’ll go with the aesthetic excuse okay). Stick them in the fridge for a while, and then you’ve got yourself some cute Oreo hearts that everyone will love, or you can just eat all of them yourself, which I totally support.
Original recipe can be found here.
That’s all for now folks! I hope these tasty treats can help brighten up your Valentine’s Day, and the many days that follow it, because obviously everyone knows getting to eat the leftovers is the best part. Happy baking and happy V-Day!
XOXO
Photos by Alley Loope
Edited by Taylor Owens
Alley is a junior at UT majoring in journalism and electronic media. She has a passion for pop culture like no other and hopes to one day work on red carpets interviewing all of her favorite celebrities. When not writing for the Tennessee Journalist, you can probably find Alley live-tweeting award shows or sharing photos of her cat, Hedwig, on Twitter.
