MADE: Buckeyes!

A boyfriend says, "Hey, Valentine's Day is coming up. Is it all right if I don't do anything special, or buy you anything?"
The girlfriend responds, "Absolutely! Valentine's Day isn't about stuff. It's about love!"

This would have worked out fine if A) Boyfriend's line hadn't meant "I'm actually going to TOTALLY FORGET Valentine's Day, like only a character in a sitcom could." and if B) Girlfriend's line hadn't meant "You're so cute, pretending that you're not doing anything for me for Valentine's Day. Such a clever cover for the ACTUALLY TOTALLY ROMANTIC THING that you're going to surprise me with!"

So the moral of the story is twofold: Listen rationally to your significant other when he or she talks about his or her expectations, and make yourself candy on Valentine's Day. Because your boyfriend's sure not going to. Nope, he's going to spend all day in the math library cozying up to the Kummer theorem and topological cohomologies.

Ahem.

Buckeyes!

When I think "making candy," I am immediately intimidated and visions of complicated alchemies involving thermometers and double boilers dance through my head. No such drama with buckeyes. They're spectacularly easy to make and also tons of fun. If dipping things in chocolate constitutes "fun" for you. If it doesn't, you should probably stop reading now and reevaluate your life. Just saying.

Buckeyes
Adapted slightly from Smitten Kitchen's delightful recipe

1/4 cup (2 tbsp) cream cheese
1 1/2 cups peanut butter--I used about 1 cup smooth and 1/2 cup crunchy, to give them a bit of texture
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
10 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
12 oz dark or bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao chunks. It was a good life choice.)

Cream together cream cheese and peanut butter. Choosy bloggers choose Jif.

Add graham cracker crumbs and salt mix until combined. Then alternate additions of sugar and butter, stirring until thoroughly mixed after each addition. Mix some more, for good measure. When everything is combined, the mixture should basically be sturdy peanut butter dough. Try not to eat it all on its own.

Now for the chocolate coating.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, or in the microwave. I used the microwave, and heated it in 15 second bursts, stirring after each one. When chocolate is smooth and thoroughly melted, you're ready for dipping!

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and roll the peanut butter dough into balls. I made mine about a teaspoon each, and wound up with a delightfully large number (see picture below for about 2/3 of the batch.)

With a skewer or fork or chopstick--something pointy--dip the peanut butter balls into the melted chocolate. As Smitten Kitchen says, it may take a few tries before you've mastered your own personal technique. She recommends tilting the container of melted chocolate and spinning the dough balls in it, but I found that method prone to breaking the little buggers in half. Instead, I just skewered them and submerged them at an angle, until most of the peanut butter was covered in chocolate, leaving only a little of the doughy goodness showing through. Somehow, SK got hers to come out without the skewer-holes being visible. She's a wizard of some sort. I, being mortal, just embraced the holes as necessary imperfections that in no way inhibited deliciousness.

After you've chocolate-dipped all of your peanut butter dough balls, put the baking sheet in the refrigerator to cool for at least a half hour. It may be difficult to wait that long, knowing that those little balls of peanut-butter-chocolatey goodness are just sitting in there, but be patient.

Then, DEVOUR. Because it's Valentine's Day, and you deserve it.*

*In place of this reasoning, feel free to use any other rationale that occurs to you.