Solid Milk Chocolate Peanut Hearts

To balance out the dark chocolate hearts in my Valentine's Day box, I opted for milk chocolate hearts. Yes, cliché.

Stacey's Milk Chocolate Peanut Hearts Ingredients:
24 oz Guittard 38% milk chocolate couverture
8 oz roasted, unsalted peanuts
Heart Molds

First, I chopped up the peanuts to make sure they were ready to go once my chocolate was tempered.

Then I tempered my milk chocolate. Milk chocolate is tempered in the same way as dark chocolate except working temperature is about 86F instead of 90F. However, I'm putting these into molds, so it's better if it's more liquidy anyway.

As I stirred the chocolate, I left the spoon that I'd be using to fill the molds as well as the peanuts in the microwave, WITHOUT turning it on of course. Just to keep them warmer than room temperature that way the chocolate won't cool as fast once I put the peanuts in, or set on the spoon as quickly.

I spooned in the tempered chocolate and peanuts and jiggled the mold on the counter (same as the dark chocolate hearts recipe) to remove air bubbles and flatten the bottoms. Then I put the molds on the table to cool and the next day they looked like this and were ready to be freed:

I put some plastic wrap on a baking sheet to free the chocolates on. This is not a polycarbonate mold so these can be released by pressing the plastic lightly on the backs of the hearts and then tapping the mold gently.

Freedom!!!

And, in their little white cups:

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