Last year for Valentine’s Day I made my wife some meatloaf cupcakes. The reviews on them were mixed. I absolutely loved them. Her on the other hand? Not so much… This year I came up with what I think is an even better idea. Chocolate covered bacon hearts!

To form the heart shapes I decided to try forming slices of bacon around some heart shaped metal cookie cutters and then wrapping them in aluminum foil before baking them in the oven. Since bacon shrinks so much when cooked I had no idea how well the bacon hearts would hold their shape, but after 20 minutes at 400° they still looked remarkably heart-like.

After letting them cool for a few minutes I slipped the bacon off of the molds and put the hearts in the refrigerator to cool even more. About an hour after that I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips, dipped the bacon hearts in them and put them back in the fridge to let the chocolate harden.

Will my wife like this years treat better than last years? I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out, but the one that I ate tasted pretty good. It’s a good thing she doesn’t read my blog too often. I’d hate to spoil the surprise!