Show Your Love on Valentine's Day with These Chocolate Recipes

Few foods say "I love you" like chocolate.

After all, chocolate has long been considered an aphrodisiac. Tryptophan and phenylethylamine are the compounds responsible for its stimulating qualities. Chocolate is also desirable for its health benefits, thanks to flavanols, antioxidants also found in berries, red wine and grapes.

In small amounts, chocolate is good for you. Many health experts recommend eating an ounce of chocolate a day. And the darker the chocolate (the richer in antioxidants), the better.

Another reason we love chocolate: it is versatile. You can sip it, bake it, layer it, mould it and even spice it up.

Our recipes today play on that versatility. There is a rich, creamy drinking chocolate. Tiramisu – which means "pick me up" in Italian – has layers of biscuits soaked in strong coffee and coffee liqueur, plus a creamy filling, all dusted with cocoa. Our brownie recipe is topped with a cheesecake layer, baked and finished with a layer of ganache. And because chocolate and chillies go hand in hand, we spiced up our molten lava cake batter with ancho chilli powder and cayenne pepper – and served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to cool things down.

Finally, we made little chocolate bowls using inflated balloons as moulds. It worked like a charm. We filled the bowls with ice cream, drizzled them with more chocolate and topped them with fresh berries.