It’s something I’ve learned from my kids, but I’ve found it works on me too – food suddenly becomes much more appealing when it’s heart-shaped.
Of course, it hardly takes any convincing at all to get most of us to try a sandwich filled with dark chocolate spread. Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Panini are my homage to Valentine’s Day this year, along with a “sweet” giveaway: one lucky winner will receive a trio of Nudo Italia Dark Chocolate Spreads. Read on to see how I pulled together these panini and to enter the chocolate spread giveaway!
My inspiration for these panini came from a pin I saw on Pinterest from a German blog called der Design & Food Blog, featuring the cutest little sandwich with a heart cutout that had been filled in with colorful sprinkles. I made (and instagrammed) those sandwiches about 10 minutes later to the great delight of my two little kids.
As you can see, they’re incredibly easy to make – just spread your chocolate on a slice of bread, butter another slice of bread (for extra-nice grill marks), punch out a heart and assemble your sandwich. I opted to trim the crusts on mine because I liked how the square panini looked, but that’s completely up to you. Then it’s just a few minutes on the panini press to toast the bread and you’re done.
The Nudo Italia spreads remind me a lot of Nutella, but they’re olive oil-based (yes, chocolate and olive oil are a match made in heaven!), made with dark cocoa and come in several different flavors. They’re almost mousse-like in texture and are perfect for adding a deep, rich chocolaty finish to panini like the ones I’m sharing today, as a crepe filling or even a dip for strawberries.
And now for the chance to WIN some…
** Win a Nudo Italia Dark Chocolate Spread Trio!! **
Nudo Italia would love to send one Panini Happy reader their Trio of Chocolate Crema (mandarin, chili and lemon flavors).
Here are four ways to enter, you can do any or all of them for a maximum of four entries (please leave separate comments for each entry):
- Leave a comment below telling us how you will be spending Valentine’s Day this year.
- Subscribe to free updates from Panini Happy via e-mail or RSS
- “Like” Panini Happy on Facebook
- Follow me on Pinterest
The giveaway will close on Friday, February 15 at 5:00 PM PST. I will use random.org to select one winner and announce the winner in this post. I will contact the winner via e-mail – if I don’t receive a response within 5 days I will draw another name. My apologies to international readers, the prize can only be shipped to U.S. addresses.
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Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Panini
Prep time: 10 minutes | Cook time: 8 minutes | Total time: 18 minutes
Yield: 4 panini
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
- 8 slices rustic white or wheat bread, sliced from a dense bakery loaf
- 4 to 8 tablespoons chocolate spread, such as Nudo Italia or Nutella
DIRECTIONS:
- Heat the panini press to medium-high heat.
- For each sandwich: Spread butter on one slice bread, then flip it over and spread 1 to 2 tablespoons of chocolate spread on the other side (if you’re planning to trim the crusts, it isn’t necessary to spread the chocolate all the way to the edges of the bread). Butter a second slice of bread; with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, punch a heart out of the center of the bread. Position the bread slice with the heart “window” on top of the first bread slice, creating a sandwich, so that the chocolate spread appears through the heart. If you’d like, trim away the bread crusts.
- Grill two panini at a time until the bread is toasted, 3 to 4 minutes.
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Thanks to Nudo Italia for providing chocolate spreads for this giveaway.
Panini Happy, online since 2008, is more than just a sandwich blog. Here, you'll find hundreds of my original 
This looks yummy! I will be making a special dinner for my family and celebrating our oldest coming home from college for the weekend!
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i’m having a root canal for valentine’s day! seriously!
I’ll be spending Valentine’s Day at a local restaurant with my boyfriend! 🙂
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I’m spending Valentines with my husband – we’re eating heart-shape ravioli, passionfruit glazed chicken, and canoodling together, heehee 🙂
And I subscribed to your emails!
I also liked you on FB 🙂
And I follow you on Pinterest too!
We will spend valentines day at home just hanging out together( Me and the hubs)
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Hubby’s out of town at a business meeting so his mom, who is visiting from out of town and a girlfriend and I will be having a girls’ night out to celebrate.
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I’ll be spending valentines day at work, then at the chiropractor, and then at Fazoli’s with my husband.
Babysitting for friends kids so they can go out.
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like on fb & just started following on pinterest.
Low key night tonight–gymnastics & school stuff for the kids. Tomorrow pm hubby & I will have clam cakes & chowder–YUM!
I’m staying home and making a nice meal for my family. We’re having a date night on Friday-yay!
Spending Valentine’s Day at work and then home making Shrimp Scampi for myself and my husband. Our favorite!
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we will be spending the evening at home, eating sweet potato burgers and drinking wine.
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We had our valentine’s day dinner last week at No. 9 Park in Boston, so we’re staying in today!
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I will spending valentines day with my beloved family at homeenjoying homemade pizza, a good romantic comedy, and enjoying each others company. It gets no better than that for us 🙂
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Following on pinterest 🙂 ty! Happy Valentines Day
Last but not least, i already subscribe to your email newsletter 🙂
I am spending Valentine’s Day with my mom, dad and sister this year. We have not seen each other in awhile, so I am looking forward to the four of us going out to dinner!
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I’m completely intrigued!! My son adores Nutella, however it has quite a bit of dairy in it and his lactose intolerant system doesn’t process it well. Curious about the dairy content of this Italian treat. I’m going to have to do some research.
Valentine’s day?? It’s a family day this year… orthodontist, dance photos, driving, etc. Luckily husband comes home from a trip later today!
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And… I follow you on Pinterest and pinned this post.
Oh, my gosh! How cute! And what a gorgeous bread you used. We never do anything after work during the week so we’ll probably just have toast for dinner or something. 🙂
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YUM! Looks so delicious. And, lucky for me, Valentine’s Day falls on date night 🙂 We will be heading out to dinner.
I will be spending Valentine’s tonight with my husband. There is nothing like being together! We just moved in to our first home, so we look forward to raising a family one day. 🙂
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Kathy – this looks incredible! I’m just hanging out with my best (single!) girlfriends tonight, and eating copious amounts of chocolate. 🙂
Already subscribed via email. And those spreads…look…soo…good!
I already “like” you on FB as well 🙂
I also follow on Pinterest! Happy VDay 🙂
I’ll be spending it with my 2 year old daughter making Valentine treats!
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adorable and looks delicious!
I’m spending the day hiking in the sunshine with my 2 furry family members (dogs), sending fun e-cards to my family who live all over teh country and having dinner with a long time friend to celebrate our friendship over the years! 😉
I’m spending Valentine’s Day evening with my husband and going out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.
Spending Valentine’s day with my Hubs, our Fist as Husband and Wife!
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I will be baking heart shaped pizzas that I bought at a local pizzaria. To follow, we’ll have mint ice cream laced with Fanny Mae mint.
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So cute, Kathy!
I am having a romantic dinner for two at home!
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These are adorable Kathy! Made some fun foods for the kids for Valentine’s Day and my hubby and I are headed out for a nice dinner alone ;).
I spent Valentines Day in a class and then went on a run with my wife and kids, its our Thursday family time.
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Never thought about chocolate panini but sounds great! Anything with chocolate… Hubby and I are going out to dinner and braving the crowds. Giving my Breville a break for the evening …smile…
I worked the night before so I slept all day and then made a lovey dinner and spent the evening with my amazing husband.
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So Darn Cute!!
i worked!
After work, we’ll spend a quiet evening with a nice dinner, exchange cards and eat chocolate 🙂
My husband and I went out for dinner
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Sooo cute, Kathy!! I love these, so clever!
adorable! Fabulous idea!