Hand Made Chocolates and Flowers

If flowers symbolize passion and love, then chocolates are the very voice of this love.  Whether it’s love for the sweet, luscious confection itself or love for another person, chocolates are a great gift for someone you care about or someone you’d like to get to know. 

The best kind of chocolate to give along with a bouquet of flowers is the assorted type – the ones that come in a pretty box and contain a delightful assortment of truffles, bonbons, and pralines.  Forrest Gump was right when he said that you never know what you’re going to get from a box of chocolates.  Trying to guess whether this bonbon is stuffed with coconut ganache, caramel, or swirling mint is part of the excitement and pleasure that comes with opening a box of chocolates.  

If you plan to combine chocolates with flowers, you’d better make sure that your chocolates live up to the exotic appeal of your flowers.  A big no-no is combining your floral gift with a box of commercial chocolates that you can buy of the shelf in a grocery store.  Yes, milk chocolates are great for everyday but as a gift, nothing can match your flowers as well as a set of hand-made chocolates.

Among all the assorted chocolates you can buy, Belgian chocolates are undoubtedly the best you can get.  After all, they set the standard by which all other chocolates are measured against.  Even the Swiss, who are known for their own excellent blend of cocoa and milk, imported their recipe from Belgian chocolatiers.  Belgian chocolates are unlike any other because they are made of the finest ingredients and are manufactured using time-tested Old World techniques.  Unlike other chocolatiers who use machines to make the mass-production of their products cheaper and more efficient, most Belgian chocolatiers make their chocolate by hand using their old-fashioned equipment.  In fact, small chocolate shops and factories are often a popular tourist attraction in Belgium, and include activities like chocolate-tasting.

One of the techniques employed by Belgian chocolatiers is the use of a special kind of chocolate called a couverteur as the cold shell for pralines.  The couverteur allows the pralines to be filled with a wide variety of creams and flavored nougats like hazelnut, coffee, fruit, mint, or more chocolate.  A specialized heating process also allows the couverteur and its filling to retain their aroma and flavor. Many chocolate companies like Godiva and Leonidas are famous all over the world for their gourmet pralines. 

Although hand made chocolates might be more expensive than the usual chocolate bar you can grab at the supermarket, anyone who has ever tied it will definitely say that a mass-produced chocolate bar has nothing in common with a genuine hand made praline. Hand made chocolates are gastronomic delights that live up to their high reputation. Give the special person in your life nothing but the best in European gourmet chocolate along with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.