Valentine's Day

50+ of the Most Romantic Chocolate Recipes

updated Feb 4, 2022

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Credit: Photo: Joe Lingeman/Kitchn; Food Stylist: Pearl Jones/Kitchn
2-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse

Whether you prefer dark and rich or smooth and creamy, there is almost no other ingredient as intrinsically linked to romance as chocolate. While Valentine’s Day marketing helped drive this association home (and still does), the relationship between love and chocolate has been around for much longer than Valentine’s Day. Throughout history, chocolate and cocoa were consumed as a tonic for health and vitality — which, of course, fed romances too.

A beautifully wrapped box of chocolates is a universal symbol of romantic love, but we think it’s much sweeter to make a chocolate dessert yourself. Cocoa and chocolate are both easy to bake with, but you can also turn them into creamy chocolate mousses, comforting puddings, and luxe chocolate drinks too. The sky’s the limit.

Here are 50+ romantic chocolate recipes that pair well with wine and candle-lit dinners.

Flourless Chocolate Desserts

There are many reasons and occasions to bake without flour, but the best reason for baking chocolate desserts without flour is that the chocolate really shines through.

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Flourless Chocolate Cake

A truly flourless chocolate cake that manages to be light and rich at the same time. It's genuinely gluten-free, fabulously foolproof, and all chocolate.

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Chocolate Torte

A very simple and rich chocolate torte.

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Flourless Chocolate Cookies

If your ideal cookie has thin, crispy edges that enclose a thick, fudgy middle with just a touch of chewiness in between, then you should definitely be making these flourless chocolate cookies.

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This 5-ingredient flourless chocolate cake gets its lofty height from beaten egg whites.

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Flourless Chocolate Almond Layer Cake

You’ll bake this cake in a jelly roll pan and split it into threes to make the layers. It's filled with a nutty chocolate cream cheese filling then covered with chocolate ganache and toasted almonds.

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2-Ingredient Nutella Brownies

Fudgy, chewy brownies made with just Nutella and eggs? If we hadn't tried it ourselves, we wouldn't believe it either.

Luxurious Chocolate Cakes

All chocolate cakes are luxurious in their own way, but these cakes are a bit more involved when it comes to time and ingredients than everyday cakes.

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Chocolate Strawberry Cake

A chocolate covered strawberry-inspired cake made up of essential four components: moist chocolate cake, bright and vibrant strawberry buttercream, silky chocolate ganache, and fresh strawberries.

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Devil's Food Cake

Rich, decadent, and chocolate-y without being overly sweet, Devil's food cake is everything a chocolate cake should be.

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Boca Negra Picosito con Salsa Dulce de Tomatillo (Spiced Chocolate Cakes with Sweet Tomatillo Sauce)

Boca negra cake got its name because, once you dig in, your mouth will be covered in luxurious chocolate. The tomatillo sauce may seem unusual, but the smokiness of the chipotles gives an incredible depth to this scrumptious dessert.

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Molten Chocolate Bundt Cake

This delicious, fudge-filled chocolate Bundt cake is a riff on Tunnel of Fudge cake.

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Chocolate Swiss Roll Cake

This chocolate roll cake is filled with marshmallowy frosting and coated in a shiny chocolate glaze. Each slice is a perfect balance of tender cake and creamy frosting.

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Chocolate Bumpy Cake

This recipe for Michigan’s famous Bumpy Cake was originally created by Sanders Confectionery and features piped rows of vanilla buttercream under the chocolate icing.

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Rich & Gooey Earthquake Cake

Rich German chocolate cake and creamy cheesecake collide in this decadent sheet cake.

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Chocolate Sponge Cake with Ganache Frosting

This chocolate sponge cake — a variation on the British Victoria sponge — is filled a layered with a rich ganache frosting.

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German Chocolate Cake

This classic German chocolate cake is complete with a gooey coconut-pecan filling and a creamy chocolate frosting.

Dark Chocolate Desserts

A little more bitter than sweet, dark chocolate desserts really appeal to the chocolate connoisseur.

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Dark Chocolate Pots de Crème

These decadent chocolate puddings are made with a mix of milk, cream, sugar, and egg yolks and baked in a water bath in the oven.

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Dark Chocolate Bark with Pistachios, Rose Petals & Walnuts

This silky chocolate bark — sprinkled with crushed bright green pistachios, light pink rose petals, and neutral walnuts — is beautiful, delicious, and fun to eat.

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Failproof Chocolate Truffles

Here's your step-by-step guide to making rich, creamy chocolate truffles at home.

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Molten Midnight Brownies

Midnight is not a term used lightly here — these are strikingly dark in color. That’s because of black cocoa powder, a type of Dutch cocoa powder that’s processed in a way that makes it completely black in color.

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Salted Black Sables with Caramelized White Chocolate

This deep, dark chocolate cookies are studded with caramelized white chocolate chunks and sprinkled with flaky sea salt.

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The Deepest Darkest Chocolate Cake

Using our favorite chocolate tricks we streamline a decadent cake into 7 layers of chocolate bliss.

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Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies

The tiny sprinkle of salt on top of these cookies before they bake is the crowning jewel, the pop of flavor that ties it all together.

Everyday Chocolate Cakes

A cake you can make any time (not just for a romantic occasion) is an “everyday cake”. These either have a short ingredient list or a shortcut to success.

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Mississippi Mud Cake

Tender chocolate cake layered with gooey, melted marshmallows and warm chocolate frosting.

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Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

This ultra-moist chocolate cake is deep and rich in flavor and best served with whipped cream and toasted hazelnuts.

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Easy Chocolate Sheet Cake

This chocolate sheet cake and its four-ingredient frosting come together in about 30 minutes, so the only hard part is waiting for the cake to cool.

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Take a page from the beloved children's novel and whip up this uber-fudgy one-bowl chocolate cake that leans on pantry staples.

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Chocolate Cake with Honey-Roasted Peanut Butter Frosting

What takes this particular cake over the top? Crowning it with a light-as-air honey-peanut butter frosting and a sprinkling of honey-roasted peanuts.

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Chocolate Cobbler

A fudgy, molten cross between a chocolate cake and a pudding.

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Chocolate Wacky Cake

This cake, which seems to date from the late ’30s or early ’40s and also goes by the name “wacky cake,” doesn’t use eggs or dairy. And you’d never know it.

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Chocolate Pound Cake

It’s cocoa, not chocolate, that gives this cake its decadent flavor, which means you can readily whip this cake up with a bunch of pantry staples.

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Chocolate Banana Cake

This easy chocolate-banana sheet cake is topped with a sweet and tangy salted peanut butter cream cheese frosting.

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The Easiest Chocolate Pudding Cakes

When you plunge your spoon through the delicate, crackly crust of this single-serve dessert, the lush, oozy center is likely to remind you of a molten lava cake. But this chocolate-filled ramekin is something entirely different.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Cupcakes just never fail to delight! Even though they aren’t designed for sharing (everyone gets their own), their cuteness still makes them sweet.

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Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Cream

Here, cocoa powder joins forces with a bit of coffee to bring you the rich, deep, and intensely flavored chocolate cupcake you crave.

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Black Forest Cupcakes

Modeled after the classic German Black Forest layer cake, these chocolate cupcakes deliver a spongy cake stuffed with a sweet cherry filling, a light and fluffy whipped cream topping, and the requisite shower of shaved chocolate.

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Chocolate Beet Cupcakes with Sour Cream Ganache Frosting

In this recipe, the beets add both sweetness and moisture to the cupcakes, rendering them just dense enough to be delightful.

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Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Ginger & Orange

Butter who? These veganized cupcakes aren’t lacking in richness, despite the absence of animal products. In fact, the canola oil keeps the cake super moist, whereas butter sometimes has the tendency to dry out.

Easy Chocolate Cookies

Yes, cookies can be romantic! The key? Making them a little more special than a regular chocolate chip cookie. These recipes will do the trick.

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Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

These decadent double chocolate chip cookies are soft, chewy, and abundantly chocolate-y.

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Chocolate Halawa Cookies

Here, rich, chewy, chocolate cardamom cookies are perfect base for the earthy, slightly savory, sesame halawa.

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Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

These classic cookies are soft, tender, and just a little bit chewy, with a delicate exterior that's coated with a thick layer of powdered sugar.

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Chocolate Truffle Cookies with Cherries & Walnuts

These cookies can go in many directions. Want triple chocolate cookies? Just add chocolate chips instead. Don’t have cherries? Use cranberries or raisins.

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Buckeye Brownie Cookies

Buckeye brownie cookies give you the best of three desserts baked into one impossibly irresistible sweet treat.

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Chocolate Chip and Toffee Shortbread Cookies

These crumbly, buttery shortbread are dunked generously in melted chocolate.

Brownies

Warm brownies are an entire love language! Any of these would be perfect for wrapping up a date night at home.

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Cream Cheese Brownies Recipe

These fudgy chocolate brownies feature a decadent cream cheese swirl.

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Coffee Brownies Recipe

These one-bowl brownies are fudgy and decadent, with a hint of coffee flavor.

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The Easiest Brownies

After making these no-bowl-required brownies once, you'll absolutely be hooked.

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Dark Heart Brownies

These triple-chocolate brownies are covered in a deep dark chocolate ganache and topped with dark chocolate hearts.

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Bittersweet Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting

These rich, fudgy brownies are topped with a whipped peanut butter frosting and finished with flaked salt to tame the sweetness and round out all the flavors.

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One-Bowl Caramel Skillet Brownies

Here, store-bought caramel sauce is swirled into the batter before the skillet heads into the oven, which bakes up into sweet, sticky pockets that are like little treasures discovered among the chocolatey bites.

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Itty Bitty Brownie Bites

These ultra-fudgy flourless brownies made in a mini muffin tin and dusted with powdered sugar.

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Instant Pot Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

Instant Pot brownies are some of the fudgiest, moistest, deeply-chocolate-y brownies around, and they're practically impossible to over-bake.

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Pantry Cocoa Brownies

These chewy brownies are shockingly simple, and yet totally decadent.

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Super-Thin Chocolate Brownies

These thin brownies are delicious on their own, but achieve new levels of amazingness when acting as bookends for the best ice cream sandwiches you’ll ever have.

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These triple decker mint brownies start with a rich fudge brownie base, topped with a layer of mint buttercream, and finished with dark chocolate ganache.

Chocolate Mousse and Puddings

Pudding and mousse are the height of romantic desserts because they require your complete attention to make, plus they need to be made ahead which only builds the anticipation of eating them.

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2-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse

The easiest version of this classic dessert might be the only dessert recipe you need for the rest of your life.

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Chrissy Teigen's Chocolate Mousse with Salty Rice Krispies–Hazelnut Crackle

This decadent chocolate mousse is topped with a crave-worthy hazelnut crackle.

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Chocolate Coconut Pudding

If you don’t have espresso powder at home, it’s completely optional. As with many desserts where the chocolate is really the star, use the best quality you can find or afford.

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The Best Chocolate Pudding from Scratch

Knowing how to make awesome chocolate pudding from scratch is like having the golden key to winning dessert.

Chocolate Pies

Homey and comforting, chocolate pies are beloved for their contrast. Chocolate pairs beautifully with a tender, buttery crust.

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No-Bake Peanut Butter Pie with Chocolate Whipped Cream

All three components of this pie — the crust, the filling, and the topping — are made in the food processor, meaning it's all prepped and assembled and ready to chill in the fridge in just 10 minutes.

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Mississippi Mud Pie

Chocolate lovers, listen up! You’ll want to dive deep into the layers of Oreo cookie crust, chocolate pudding, chewy fudge brownie, and whipped cream.

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Fancy No-Bake Chocolate Caramel Tart

It couldn't be easier to make this chocolate caramel tart that looks as fancy as anything you would find at a restaurant, thanks to two very clever shortcuts.

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Copycat Costco Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie

This copycat version of the viral Costco pie might just be better than the original, from the graham cracker crust to the creamy layer of peanut butter and chocolate-marshmallow topping.

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Chocolate Cream Pie

This silky-smooth chocolate cream pie is made with an Oreo crust and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

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French Silk Pie

The fluffy, light texture of the filling in this pie really does remind us of silk, and it’s such a showstopper too.

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Chocolate Chess Pie

Chocolate chess pie is quintessentially Southern. It requires only the most basic ingredients and just a few minutes of your time. It’s soul-satisfying and the perfect way to end any meal.

Credit: Kitchn

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