Everyone loves chocolate for Valentine's Day. To satisfy your chocolate cravings try our top picks for heart shaped boxes.

As we noted a couple of weeks ago, Ben and Jerry's recently sought to harness the idealistic fervor of Barack Obama's supporters by renaming their butter pecan ice cream "Yes, Pecan!" To the company's credit, it has agreed to donate all of the profits from the sale of this flavor to Common Cause, a voting advocacy group. While I am not a huge fan of Unilever, the current owners of Ben and Jerry's, and have numerous problems with the additives that started creeping into the ice cream after it sold out in 2000, I have to admit that this seems to be a well-intentioned (if transparently exploitative) move.

My cousin, Cathryn Michon, aka The Grrl Genius, is a great deal less cynical than me. Moreover, she has a definite skill when it comes to adding sweet ingredients to each other; consequently, I advise prefacing this recipe with a nice big shot of insulin. Enjoy!


Smoking Hot Fudge Barack Obama "Yes, Pecan!" Inaugural Sundae

Two Scoops of Ben and Jerry's "Yes, Pecan" ice cream (or any brand of butter pecan ice cream)
1/4 cup candied pecans
1/2 cup Godiva hot fudge (or brand of your choice)
1/2 cup whipped cream
1 George Washington honorary Maraschino cherry
1/4 ounce dark rum
Hawaiian orchid (for garnish)

Warm hot fudge according to package directions and pour over the ice cream. Place the pecans decoratively on the sides of the sundae and lay the decorative orchid at the base of the serving dish. Spoon on a generous serving of the whipped cream, creating a trough in the whipped cream that resembles the cone of a live Hawaiian volcano. Set the cherry in the trough and fill with dark rum. Set the rum on fire with either a long match or a butane lighter to symbolize our smoking hot new President and the sweet hope that will sustain us in all the days to come.

Serves one happy world citizen!

Looking for some spooky treats to take to a friend's upscale Halloween shindig tonight? Well, you could buy these strawberry ghosts from Godiva for $4.50 a pop. If that is a little beyond your budget, you could try following these directions over at the Kitchen at Apartment Therapy and make your own. They say that all you need is fruit, chocolate, paraffin wax, a small pot, toothpicks and wax or parchment paper. Sounds like a delicious, if potentially frustrating, project. If you give it a shot, let us know how it turns out!

The Cheesecake Factory is not known for serving health food. In fact, their giant portions can turn even healthy fare into things that you should think twice before eating. Many concerned with calories will ask their waiter to put half of the portion into a to-go box at the same time that the main course is served, which prevents the diner from overeating their pasta, salad, etc. The main thing to avoid there, unless you're not giving the least thought to what you eat, is the cheesecake. Although tasty, their massive pieces often have more than half of your daily calorie requirements. CSPI wrote, in their Nutrition Action Healthletter this month, that the Cheesecake Factory Godiva Cheesecake (pictured) has 1,000 calories and 41 grams of "bad" saturated fat. Unfortunately, they didn't enlighten the readers as to how much fat in total is in the cheesecake, but they did provide a colorful analogy to help picture just how bad it is: "it's like ordering a Pizza hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza - topped with 10 pats of butter - after dinner."

Yum.

If you're willing to toss your diet out the window for a few days (or want to share with a large crowd), you can order this cheesecake online. For a healthier cheesecake, try a vegan version or stick to a bite-sized tart that will give you portion control.

Harry & David is known for their gourmet gift baskets and the high quality fruits, nuts, chocolates and other goodies that they ship out. They are not the "go-to" source for Valentine's Vay chocolates, however, because many consumers feel that they will get better chocolates from a source that specializes only in chocolates. This decision, although seemingly logical, is not necessarily the right one to make. A multi-brand taste test in Money Magazine placed Harry & David's chocolates above those from Vosages Haute-Chocolate, Whittman, Godiva and Target's Choxie.

Brands from all different price categories were chosen and evaluated for quality of the chocolate, the "accuracy of flavors," packaging appeal and value by a group of women (since they are somewhat more likely to receive chocolates on Valentine's Day than men).

The specific chocolate selection used in the taste test was Harry & David's 1-lb. Grand Collection, which includes a variety of milk and dark chocolates with nuts, caramels, toffees, fruits and berries. It retails for $29.99.

By now we have firmly established that the end-of-the year is pie season and, while pies are still delicious year round, they are rarely more appreciated. To capitalize on our love of pies in fall, Godiva has released a limited edition American Pie Collection. The 18-piece box features pie-flavored truffles, elegantly painted and shaped into little wedges of "pie." There are a total of eight flavors included:

• Apple Crumb Pie - made with real Granny Smith apples and cinnamon
• Strawberry Pie - features fresh strawberries, sugar and butter, like the summer pie filling
• Key Lime - condensed milk, vanilla and lime juice inside a white chocolate shell
• Lemon Meringue - white chocolate with a meringue-textured lemon filling
• Banana Cream Pie - a mix of banana and vanilla in a white chocolate ganache
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie - combines natural-style peanut butter and chocolate cream
• Chocolate Cream Pie - a 72% chocolate truffle center in dark chocolate
• Pecan Pie - pecans mixed into a molasses flavored milk caramel and mixed with milk and dark chocolate

Operating purely from a health perspective, Epicurious set out to taste some sugar-free chocolates to see if there was one on the market that didn't "taste like chalk." In this case, they were taste testing the treats with a Halloween loving but candy-deprived diabetic, so the test was not conducted from a weight-loss or low-carb mindset . This is a solid indication that the tasters really were putting taste first, and not the nutrition label. The chocolates were grouped by brand:

• Hershey's - Winner: Sugar Free York Peppermint Patties, Loser: No Sugar Hershey bars ("truly awful")
• Guylian - Winner: Dark chocolate bar, Loser: Hazelnut bar (unless you're a big hazelnut fan)
• Asher Chocolates - Winner: Espresso truffles and vanilla caramels, Loser: Peppermint patties (not minty enough)
• Godiva - Winner: Milk and dark assortment, dark chocolate candy bars, Loser: None.

In general, the tasters felt that you got what you paid for when it came to sugar-free chocolates. The Godiva chocolates were the best of the bunch and were remarkably similar to "real" chcolates. Darker chocolates, which have less sugar even in regular bars, will transition more smoothly than milk chocolates. Combining the chocolates with other strong flavors, like hazelnut, coconut or mint, can cover up any minor flaws in the chocolate and will make even a poor-quality no-sugar chocolate acceptable most of the time.

Oh man. I knew that Godiva made "seasonal" chocolates, but I had no idea that they had something like this! The Godiva Pumpkin Patch Truffles are a rich and creamy pumpkin spiced ganache, covered with milk chocolate, then dusted with cinnamon, the quintessential spice of autumn. Wrapped in shiny orange foil, then embellished with a pumpkin leaf, these are absolutely adorable.

Did someone warn me about my carriage turning back into a pumpkin? I sure don't mind if it's one of these!

The Godiva Pumpkin Patch truffles are available online at Godiva, $12.50 for a package of five.

[via: ThisNext]

Godiva has long been a favorite of chocolate-lovers, especially among their core audience of women from 25 to 40, but with the rise of hip new chocolate companies, increasingly off-the-wall flavor combinations and the acceptance of these changes by consumers, the company needed to freshen up their image.

To this end, they are redecorating most of their North American stores and have redesigned their signature gold ballotin, packing it with some brand new, more modern, chocolate combinations.

The box itself is bigger and more luxurious looking, with thick gold paper and a better organization "designed to help customers identify the different...collections." The chocolates themselves have more unusual shapes and are painted with edible, colorful designs, just as many artisan chocolatiers do now. The new flavors include: pecan-caramel duet, a caramel-accented milk chocolate ganache, chocolate with sweet cherry, dark chocolate with raspberry caramel and a macadamia nut mosaic.

The Godiva G collection is the ultra-gourmet line of chocolates made by the popular chocolatier. For Mother's Day, they have introduced a limited release 20-piece set of chocolates. Each collection is packaged in an elegant pink gift box and, in honor of the jeweler Aaron Basha, a free travel jewelry case is included with each purchase. Unfortunately, no jewelry is included, but speaking of jewels, each candy in the collection looks like one, with unique and vibrant coloring topping of each of the decadent, intense truffles. The box is $65 and will only be available through May 14th.

There are fifteen unique flavors in the G collection, which you can read about here. I loved the Key Lime Pie and the Salted Caramel, but the Thai Coconut and PB&J, neither of which I had the chance to try, sound fantastic, as well.

Coca-Cola can't seem to get enough coffee. First it was the overly sweet Coca-Cola Blak. Now the soft-drink giant is teaming with Godiva to launch a beverage line being tagged as Godiva Belgian Blends.

The drinks, which a press release breathlessly describes as, "more decadent than just plain coffee,"  will be branded under the Godiva name. The coffee beverages are not the first products that the Belgian chocolatier has licensed. Others include ice cream and liqueur.

Flavors will include Dark Chocolate Mocha, Milk Chocolate Mocha and French Vanilla Latte. Given my twin vices of chocolate and coffee I just might be first in line when this stuff comes out at the end of July.

With Easter drawing ever closer, the number of bunny and egg themed chocolates in stores seems to be growing exponentially. Sure, all the products were all there months ago, but you cannot deny that there are far more now. The real question is how to choose between all the options, because even though you could take home a whole shopping-cart full of chocolaty treats, some are simply more worth it than others. The most fun are the larger, filled Easter eggs. They're tasty and definitely unique to this time of year.

For a look at some of the more widely available dark chocolate easter egg options, take a look at Sugar Savvy's review of some supermarket choices. Russell Stover's chocolate raspberry whip filling came out a winner, but they also liked Hershey's Special Dark with Almonds. At Candy Blog, Cybele also tackled Russell Stover eggs, in addition to Reese's Peanut Butter eggs and the ever popular Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Though it may be a touch to late to order for Valentine's Day unless you live near a purveyor of fine chocolates, I have never yet heard of someone refusing to accept a belated Valentine's Day box of chocolates – particularly not if it is an exceptionally good box. Consumer Reports published ratings of their best chocolates picks, ranked into categories of excellent, very good, good and fair. Among those receiving Excellent ratings were Candinas and Jacques Torres, followed closely in the Very Good category by confections from Frans Chocolates, Godiva, Leonidas Chocolate and See's.

Every time I see See's Candies ranked lower than some other chocolate makers - though I do like the choices that CR has made here - I can't help but feel that it is because they are both widely available (here on the West Coast, anyway) and reasonably priced. Their products are excellent and, unlike some "higher end" confections, are sure to be a hit with anyone you given them to, since they mainly stick with classic flavors instead of following the arbitrary whims of flash-in-the-pan taste trends. They may not have curried truffles, but their caramels and buttercreams are definately the way to any candy-lover's heart.

In the newest issue of Real Simple, the magazine's taste-testers turned their taste buds to hot chocolate mixes. They compared over 40 varieties of hot cocoas and hot chocolates. Hot chocolates typically have real pieces of chocolate in addition to cocoa powder in them, while hot cocoas are sweetened cocoa. They broke the competitors down into categories by price and picked their winners.

In the under $5 category, the milk chocolaty Land o'Lakes Classics Supreme was the top choice, followed by Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation, both of which you should be able to find at your local supermarket. In the $10-15 dollar range, Godiva's Dark Chocolate Truffle ranked supreme, followed by the dark and intense Schokinag Extreme Dark. For the bigger spenders, Jacques Torres Wicked, a spicy mixture with chocolate, ancho and chipotle peppers, ranked highest in the over $15 category, followed by Mariebelle Aztec.

Now, if only they'd have a marshmallow testing.