The stores are crowded with pink and red cards, flowers, chocolate, and balloons.

You don’t need to tell me how delicious Dove chocolates are, but wouldn’t you love to give your valentine something more personal? I think a homemade present is always a better way to go.

Since food is the way to a man’s heart, I thought I’d put it to the test by baking up some Nutella heart-shaped cookies. Who doesn’t love Nutella?

I started by beating the butter, Nutella and sugar together in a mixer. Now let me just tell you, I really hate mixers. Every mixer is different, and it takes some time getting used to a new one. My small, hand-held one mysteriously went missing, so I was forced to use my roommate’s super old mixer. And when I say “super old,” I mean it looks like it’s from the ‘70s — complete with the popular pea-green color.

Once I threw in the dry ingredients, the beaters kept falling out, forcing the mixer to make a scary clunking noise. And the dough was so thick that it got caught, so I had to stop and mix it with my hands a few times.

I’m not sure if the dough got stuck because the mixer was so old or if it was because it was so dense, but the recipe I found online recommended that I add a little cream to thin it out. That helped a lot.

After I cut the cookies out in shape of hearts, I put them on a cookie sheet and baked them for 12 minutes. Like the mixer, though, my oven is an oldie. Some of the cookies came out kind of hard, so I’d recommend baking them for about 10 minutes instead.

Then came the best part about the cookies: decorating them. I added red food coloring to white frosting, and with help from my boyfriend and roommate, my Nutella heart-shaped cookies were looking beautiful and ready to give as Valentine’s Day gifts.