Valentine's Day is a week from tomorrow, which is as good an excuse as any to focus on chocolate for just a moment. Chocolate and Valentine's — together they make a February cliché, but this collection of chocolate recipes we have for you today is anything but trite.

Sure, there are chocolate cupcakes, but one is dense and fudgy inside, like a lava cake cooled into fudge, while the other is vegan-friendly and livened up with orange and ginger.

There's a chocolate bundt cake with the funky sweetness of root beer, and brownies with sea salt and lime. There's hot chocolate on a stick — a fun and delicious Valentine's gift — and dark, intense chocolate mousse with a touch of olive oil. We'd like to think of these as our best chocolate recipes and finds — no one-dimensional desserts here, every one with a little something special. Just right for Valentine's, and any time.

CAKES & CUPCAKES
• 1 Fudgy Chocolate Cakelets with a Pinch of Glamour
• 2 Surprisingly Quick Root Beer Chocolate Bundt Cake
• 3 Vegan Chocolate Ginger Orange Cupcakes
• 4 Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake
• 5 Chocolate Chess Pie

COOKIES & BROWNIES
• 6 Extra-Dark Brownies with Sea Salt & Lime
• 7 The Best Chewy Chocolate Cookies Ever (& Low-Fat Too)
• 8 Gluten-Free Chocolate Whoopie Pies and Marshmallow Cream
• 9 Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies
• 10 One Bowl Mascarpone Brownies

PUDDINGS & ICE CREAM
• 11 Chocolate Mousse with Olive Oil and Sea Salt
• 12 Mexican Chocolate and Almond Ice Cream
• 13 Chocolate Whiskey Pots de Crème

CANDY & OTHER TREATS
• 14 Candied Bacon Fudge
• 15 Coconut Ganache Bourbon Balls
• 16 Chocolate-Dipped Beer Marshmallows
• 17 Old-Fashioned Hot Fudge Sauce

DRINKS
• 18 Peppermint Mocha
• 19 Hot Chocolate On A Stick
• 20 Malted Cocoa Mix

Related: Is It Cocoa or Cake? Baked Hot Chocolate!

(Images: See linked recipes for full image credits)

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