Valentine's Chocolate Hazelnut Creme Puffs

Wayward Weekend #2 is still open! Oh, and today's my husband's birthday

Last year for Valentine's Day, I saw Paula Deen make this and I decided to give it a shot: chocolate creme puffs with a homemade hazelnut filling.

To make creme puffs, you start with water, butter and salt, and heat them to a boil. Then you add the dry ingredients.

You stir those until it forms a dough ball, and let it cool 5 minutes.

Then you beat in the eggs one at a time until it's well mixed and glossy:

I didn't have a piping set at the time (though I do now--Merry Christmas to me!), so I used the old kitchen standby: a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off.

And then you pipe them. If you're using a real piping set, a star tip can make these extra pretty. And honestly, they need all the help they can get . . .

Then you bake them at 375 F--and according to my friend Annette Lyon in her cookbook Chocolate Never Faileth, do NOT use a convection setting, because the cream puffiness depends on heat radiating from the bottom up.

Mine didn't puff up a ton—in fact, if I remember correctly, I kept sticking them back in the oven because I was convinced they weren't done. (They turned out just fine.)

For the hazelnut filling, you toast the hazelnuts and then grind them up. You add in powdered sugar and chocolate. I didn't have quite 5 ounces of chocolate, so I skimped a little there (I know, I know, terrible of me. I probably ate the rest of the chocolate.)

The result looked a little grainy—it's definitely not Nutella—but actually tasted very smooth and rich. Mine ended up on the dry side because I was short on chocolate, but it was still very tasty.

Cut the creme puffs in half and spoon or spatula the filling inside and voila!

What's your favorite Valentine's treat?