mommy bytes: Love with Chocolate Leaves

For Valentine's Day this year, I was inspired by Piera's beautiful chocolate leaves from her premier post on Aiming Low. She even got her hubby to demonstrate how to make them on video! I'm no food blogger (especially since my last food post here was about ramen noodles), so don't look here for directions. I can only offer advice as a totally non-crafty kinda baker.

First thing I had to do was to find some fake leaves. I have no plant-like decorations in my house, other than the wild real plants that live here, and have never understood the huge section of plastic flora at craft stores. I found this nice fake plastic branch for $1.99.

I yanked off the smaller leaves and washed them. Dova thought they looked like little feet. I left the leaves attached to each other "just in case" I wanted to use the branch again.

I didn't manage to take any photos during the process of making the chocolate leaves, so go back and visit Piera's awesome cheesecake post on Aiming Low. Chocolate covered hands simply don't go with cameras in my book. But I can certainly take photos of the finished product.

And with our Valentine heart cookies. Dova went a bit overboard with the colored sugar...

To add a bit of color and hopes for springtime, we made a batch of flower cookies as well. Again overboard with sprinkling...

Dova, not so much!

During the cookie making process, Dova uttered the ultimate mommy bliss words, "Mom, I LOVE baking with you." Awww, I think I'll keep her.

Her cookies make for a beautiful presentation with the chocolate leaves. And afterward, I put the leaves back on the branch and put them in the corner of my kitchen. I can decorate with fake plastic plants after all!