Love is like a box of chocolates... that you make

Giving Mom a box of chocolates on her special day can be a fine way to show your love. Even more so if you made the chocolates yourself.

Relax. It's easier than it sounds and we've written up a foolproof plan for making all of the mothers in your life a special box jammed with a delicious variety of chocolates.

To keep it manageable, we broke the process up into a two-afternoon project that produces five 15-piece boxes of mixed filled and decorated chocolates, such as chocolate-dipped fruit jellies, dipped caramels and buttercreams. The only special equipment you'll need is a candy thermometer; they are inexpensive and available at kitchen and hardware stores.

Craft and baking supply shops will be your best bet for boxes and wrappers. Once made, the chocolates can be kept in a cool and dry place for up to a week.

For the fruit jellies, we used passionfruit nectar and black cherry juice, but use whichever juice you like, including grape, pomegranate, apricot or blueberry. Just be sure to use 100 percent juice made from just the fruit named (not a fruit juice blend).

When making the buttercream filling, use whichever flavor you like. Strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon are common flavors used for chocolates. Mint, vanilla, butter rum, ginger, maple and anise also are good. If you'd like to color the filling, gel food coloring can be stirred in with the extract. To make more than one flavor, simply divide the unflavored buttercream mixture into bowls and flavor them individually.

DAY ONE

BEGIN BY PREPARING THE FRUIT JELLIES:

Sugar, for dusting

1 1/4 cups fruit juice

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 cups sugar

Two 3-ounce envelopes liquid pectin (sold with canning supplies)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Coat a 9-by-9-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Dust the pan with sugar, then tap to coat evenly and tip out any excess. Open the packages of pectin to have them ready to use.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the juice, applesauce and sugar. Stirring constantly, heat until the mixture reaches 238 F on a candy thermometer. Add the pectin and return to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook for 1 minute.