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1. Helpless – Hot Chocolate Hearts Melt dark and milk chocolate in a water bath, add sugar and chili powder and some vanilla and fill the mass into molds. That was the recipe Angel had found in a recipe book while searching for the perfect birthday gift for Buffy. It would be easy, and exactly the right thing to calm his racing thoughts – he should have walked her home instead of trusting Buffy to find her way home without her strength. Maybe it would also help him to calm down, not be too angry at himself, or at the Watcher's Council for having that gruesome test in the first place.Angel prepared a water bath with practiced ease, and added the chocolate, sugar and the spices. The chocolate smell soon filled his kitchen, to a human it would smell and taste absolutely amazing. If he tried to taste the chocolate though, it would taste like all human food – absolutely tasteless. He stirred the mass for a little bit, always cautious of it becoming too hot (he had read in the cookbook that this would make the end result look unappetizing), and filled the molds with the chocolate mass, shaking them gently to even out the chocolate. Angel added popsicle sticks as soon as the chocolate began to become solid, and moved the whole thing into storage to cool down.Later that evening, after drawing the finished chocolates, Angel came to Buffy's house with a box of chocolate heart popsicles. He could still see that Buffy was hurt, several scratches were visible and they seemed not to be healing at the usual pace. “I made you some hot chocolate popsicles – the cookbook said you only had to pop them into milk and stir until they have dissolved completely,” he said. “Would you like one now?“As Buffy sat down with her hot chocolate, looking much better than before, Angel knew it had worked. The hot chocolate wouldn't heal her wounds faster, it wouldn't make her strength come back, but it had helped nevertheless, even though he wished he could give her more, all the things that she deserved.The chocolates lasted even after Buffy had her strength back, even though Buffy made herself a hot chocolate every day. It sort of became her comfort drink – even though she weaseled the recipe from Angel, hers were never as good as the chocolates Angel made for her. 2. The Yoko Factor – Cappuccino Nut Praline Melt white chocolate in a water bath – ever since Buffy had returned to Sunnydale, Angel was feeling remorseful for the way they had parted in the police station. They weren't together anymore, but that was no excuse for the way he had been acting – he needed to apologize. And why shouldn't he bring some chocolates with him, if he went to Sunnydale in person anyway? They tasted amazing, or at least he remembered so – they didn't have time to make home-made ones on Thanksgiving – so they could only be better. Chasing away the wistful thoughts, Angel started working. The white chocolate was delicate, Angel had rarely worked with it – he had just read in his cookbook that it needed to be handled at the lowest settings, and with a thermometer. Thankfully he managed just fine, filling it in the molds and setting them aside. Angel returned to the stove, melting coffee-flavored chocolate and nougat in the water bath, while stirring. He added some small-cut nut praline and filled the mass on the white chocolate. Angel shook the molds gently, so the mass had a flat surface and put them into storage to cool down. When he came to Sunnydale, he had thankfully left the chocolates in the car. Which was a wise choice given that Riley caught up with him on his way to Buffy's dorm room. They wouldn't have survived a fight. To not aggravate the situation further, Angel chose to put the chocolates before Buffy's dorm room door after Buffy and Riley had left. He didn't leave a card though, he didn't need to, because Buffy recognized his chocolates anyway.There was only one person in the world who made her hand-made heart-shaped chocolates and left them before her door, and this was Angel. It seemed like he didn´t go back to L.A. immediately afterwards, and lurked around instead, but Buffy couldn't find it in her heart to be mad at him, especially if she got such amazing chocolates out of it. 3. Forever – Chocolate Truffles Angel hadn't had human food in his home for a while now, ever since he had fired Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn. Cooking was not the first thing on his mind now, but as soon as he heard that Buffy's mother had died, he felt like making chocolates again. They wouldn't bring Mrs. Summers back, but they should be comforting and chocolatey – a flavor he still hadn't really forgotten, even though everything tasted the same to him again. He wasn't yet on the best of terms with his friends – so he decided to go and get the ingredients himself – cream, dark chocolate, butter and cocoa powder. He also picked up some groceries, thinking about cooking for his friends again at some point.Heating the cream, melting chocolate and butter, all while stirring. Then let it cool in the fridge so it would be easier to handle. Ironically, that was one of the recipes he was quite suited for, because it called for cold hands to form the truffles and roll them in the cocoa. That irony was not lost on him, even the first time Angel read it in the cookbook. He could not taste them, he could not give Buffy the comfort she needed, but he could make her home-made truffles.While spending the night with Buffy at the graveyard, Angel left the truffles in the car and only gave them to Buffy when they said goodbyes at his car. Buffy tried one as soon as Angel was out of sight – they tasted as they smelled – of home, a chocolatey taste with the hope of managing it somehow. 4. Flooded/Carpe Noctem – Home-made mint-chocolate-chip ice cream with chocolate hard-shell topping Angel had run to the phone the moment Cordelia had told him that Buffy was alive. To his disappointment it wasn´t Buffy though, it was Willow, telling him that Buffy was alive – pulled out of hell, according to her. Angel couldn´t really believe that – his Buffy deserved heaven, not hell, like him. He wanted to meet her – but it was too late for that today, they wouldn´t manage to meet before daybreak. So, instead of calling Buffy, Angel thought about what to bring her. The closest thing to heaven had been the day that only he remembered – chocolate and ice cream. Angel hadn't looked at his recipe books in a while, but there had been a recipe for mint-chocolate chip ice cream in one of them.Angel quickly gathered the ingredients from the nearby store and started making ice cream by heating cream in a pot, adding it to egg yolks, icing sugar and peppermint syrup. It was mostly stirring, while waiting for it to thicken, then cooling it down, while occasionally stirring and adding cut-up mint-chocolate to it, before letting it freeze completely. When Angel called Buffy to meet at their place, the cool box he normally used for his blood was ready to go – home-made mint-chocolate ice cream and some chocolate to melt, but no blood. “You could have just bought hard-shell topping in a bottle“, Buffy said, when Angel served her the ice-cream and her smile reached her eyes for the first time that day. “I didn't even know that existed!,” he answered, while making himself an ice-cream sundae – even though it would be completely tasteless. Buffy laughed, and even though there were still shadows behind her eyes, even though they parted later, the shadows seemed to have been lessened a bit. 5. Chosen – Chocolate Coffee Beans Ever since Angel had gotten the call from Buffy that they had successfully managed to defeat the First and that they would come to him to regroup, he couldn't stop thinking and flipping though his cookbooks, which would probably soon end up in storage.Buffy had told him she would bring a lot of young girls, new Slayers, some of them who had never been in a battle before and then asked him: “Can you make your hot chocolate for the new Slayers?“ The hot chocolate hearts were no problem, and were already cooling down in his pantry. It was the first time that he had cooked in daylight and part of him wanted to draw it. The other part, which was still mourning Connor, didn´t, because he wanted to share these recipes with his son. But instead it would be Connor´s new family who would be teaching him their own recipes. And so he didn´t, especially as this place still gave him the creeps. But what to give to Buffy? Nothing with cookies or cookie dough, nothing with hearts, although she was always in his heart. What about Chocolate Coffee Beans with a marzipan filling? It sounded easy and was innocuous. So Angel made a dough out of instant coffee, coffee liquor, marzipan and icing sugar and formed little oval shapes, which he then dumped into the chocolate he had melted before. When the chocolate was beginning to harden, he carved a line into it so that they looked like big coffee beans and let them dry. They were ready when Buffy and the newly-called Slayers arrived and for once, Angel had no problem with Buffy sharing his chocolates around, while the new Slayers were enjoying their hot chocolate. “Mmmh, that tastes amazing, didn´t know you could do that!“ He heard Faith praising him. Further down the room he heard one of the new Slayers tell another that this was amazing hot chocolate, and the other girl answer that this was true “guardian angel hot chocolate“, the one that put off Dementors or something similar. And in this moment, Angel didn't care that Buffy was still cookie-dough, that it would be years if ever, that she would be gone afterwards. That he had to fight evil from within for the chance of giving Connor a new life. Maybe Buffy and he would be together, maybe not. Maybe he had to give her up like he had Connor, but there was at least that shimmer of hope (not perfect happiness, never perfect happiness in a place that made his skin crawl) which he didn't deserve at all. + 1 Post-Canon (Dreams of Home Universe) – Irish Cream chocolates “Where does Angel keep his chocolate thingies? Left cabinet?“ Buffy mused aloud, while searching through Liam´s kitchen. It only felt like days ago that she had gotten that parcel and come to Ireland to tell Liam that she was ready to eat. (Buffy still cringed at this metaphor, it hadn't been her brightest moment and well, Liam seemed to like it way too much, especially now, when he could enjoy cookies). Liam´s birthday – officially his twenty-eighth, unofficially his 278th was next week and Buffy wanted to surprise him with some home-made chocolates, the way he always did for her. Thankfully Moira had provided her with a recipe for Irish Cream chocolates (which wasn´t in Irish thankfully, because, well, her Irish was pretty much limited to Liam´s endearments, some cooking ingredients as well as traffic signs) and Eithne had taken Liam on a walk to Salthill, so they wouldn't be back that soon either. Still, all of this was for nothing if she didn't manage to find Liam´s chocolate thingies. Finally, after a lot of rummaging, Buffy found his molds, wrapping papers and the thermometer, as well as the chocolate that he had already bought. “Here goes nothing“, Buffy thought as she – a lot less experienced – set up a water bath to melt the chocolate in. After it melted – which worked better than Buffy had thought it would – she added it to a butter and icing sugar mixture. Carefully she worked in the cocoa, instant coffee and the Irish Cream liquor Moira had gotten her („It's the one brand Eithne and I love to use“) and put it into the pantry to cool down. When they had cooled down enough, Buffy formed balls out of them, turned them in cocoa, and let them cool out completely in the fridge, removing them before Liam came home. As Buffy handed the chocolates to Liam on his birthday, he was speechless for a while, tried one immediately and then started praising her. “I want that recipe for my collection“, he said and began drawing the chocolates.