ephemeral valentine’s cards

the winding story behind an edible valentine’s gift and the note it leaves behind as it gets eaten

i was preparing for a valentine’s dessert display last week and noticed how some desserts, when removed from the parchment paper, left behind traces - coffee ladyfingers being turned into a cake left heart-shaped imprints and piped meringues left a bow stamped in red. they felt to me like an ephemeral card referencing the sweet treat that would be eaten for valentine’s day.

i took the sheet of meringue stamps and wrote a little valentine’s note in food dye to give to théo. i placed it next to a plate of leftover meringues. the gesture reminded me, for better or worse, of the valentine’s cards we would distribute in elementary school, with tiny heart-shaped chocolates wrapped in foil, or taped to boxes of sweethearts (or conversation hearts). these cards were exciting mostly because of the candy that came with them, the card itself was often quickly discarded as it didn’t express anything beyond a generic or punny message about love. just like these cards from my childhood, the gesture of writing happy valentine’s on the parchment paper felt like (and was) an afterthought.

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i set the meringue stamped card aside and started preparing for this mid-month blog post, i started by googling the history of candy on valentine’s day. i quickly fell down a bit of a rabbit hole on sweethearts and realized in their ingredients and processing they’re not all that different from meringue.

(you can watch martha stewart explain how the candy is made, or continue reading for a shorter description) 

sweethearts/conversation hearts/love hearts (or whatever you want to call them) can be traced back to a boston pharmacy in the 19th century, where pharmacist oliver chase used a little pressing machine to make lozenges. he eventually swapped out the medicinal ingredients for sugar and flavorings, inventing the first-ever candy-making machine. the pharmacist’s brother adapted the newfound candy-making process further by adding a component that stamped red dye on the surface of the candy.

by the turn of the century, the candies evolved into the sweethearts we now know. they are made by mixing finely ground sugar, corn syrup, stabilizers, flavorings, and color. they are then shaped, stamped, and heated at a low temperature until dry. meringues too are made from fine sugar, stabilizers, and flavorings and are slowly dried in the oven. the biggest differences are: in meringues, there is an addition of egg whites, and they’re whipped and piped instead of pressed. they are also not stamped with sentimental sayings, but thinking of the sweetheart’s red-printed phrases, i was reminded of the red dye left on the parchment from the meringue. 

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with all of this in mind, i decided to make my own ‘inverted’ sweetheart. instead of being pressed, these would be whipped and piped, with the love note revealed on the paper only after being eaten. for the design, i decided to stray a bit from the traditional sweetheart. this one was to be larger, about the size of a box of chocolates, and the design was inspired by the frilly valentine’s chocolate boxes that i coveted as a child (see examples here).

i started by making a red meringue and piping it on parchment paper. since i can’t pipe letters to save my life, i created a template on a sheet of printer paper and laid this underneath the parchment paper as a guide. i baked this first layer off and then made another batch of meringue, this time in pink. i completely covered the red layer with pink decorative piping and a bow centerpiece and baked the meringue again. consuming the meringue slowly revealed the imprint of a valentine’s day wish. the faded impression like those ephemeral joys of childhood and the sweethearts we’d pass around in a sugary show of love.