Surprise your sweetie on Valentine's Day with a package from Dozen Cupcakes on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill. The specialty bakery is making cupcakes just for sweethearts -- Passion Fruit (yellow cake topped with passion fruit buttercream) and Spicy Chocolate (topped with chocolate ganache and a candied rose petal).

	Dozen Cupcakes, Squirrel Hill, offers Spicy Chocolate and Passion Fruit cupcakes just for Valentine's Day. Click photo for larger image.

To pick up four in a box lined with red tissue paper and sporting a red bow, call 412-420-5135 by Tuesday.

Serious enough about your sweetie to pop the question? Reserve one of Dozen's three tables, make the proposal and receive a $25 gift certificate, plus get your picture and story posted on www.dozencupcakes.com.

How about a box of chocolates?

Mon Aimee Chocolat in the Strip District has boxes of premium bonbons and a large selection of single-origin chocolates that can be bought as an assortment and gift-wrapped with a ribbon. Prices range from $13 to $16.

Or cook a V-Day dinner

Dazzle him on Wednesday with a delicious homemade dinner you made especially for him, thanks to the Valentine's Day Dinner class you took from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute on Liberty Avenue, Downtown.

Choose one of two menus -- Chicken Marsala, Pasta Primavera and Vegetable Medley or Crabmeat Stuffed Flounder, Rice Pilaf and Green Beans Amandine. Both come with mini-cake filled with chocolate-covered strawberries.

Class cost is $59. Call 412-325-3507 between 2 and 4 p.m. to register.

Try a Valentine's tea

If your Valentine is a tea lover, take her/him to Alexandra's Tea Room, a new shop in a turn-of-the-century house at 931 Pittsburgh St., Springdale.

The Valentine menu includes cauliflower soup, cheese scones, white chocolate cranberry bread, chicken salad in filo cups, tea sandwiches (ham and cheese on rye, pineapple cream cheese, cucumber), desserts (raspberry truffle brownie, heart cookies, cinnamon biscotti, mini-coconut cupcake) and unlimited pots of tea. Owner Nancy Pursh promises a gift to each person.

Seatings are at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Cost is $17.50; reservations are a must. Call 724-274-4490.

Romantic overnighters

Put the romance back into Valentine's Day with an overnight stay at a local hotel.

At the four-star Renaissance Pittsburgh, enjoy a room, breakfast for two, valet parking, a red rose, a box of Sarris chocolates, a split of champagne and a hand-delivered piece of jewelry in a blue box for $299 (or $199 without the jewelry). Details: 412-562-1200.

The Westin Convention Center's package includes a room, $100 credit at the Original Fish Market, champagne and valet parking for $279 (412-281-3700).

The Sheraton Station Square offers a room, two special guest bathrobes, $100 food and beverage credit, in-room movie and free parking for $325 (1-800-325-3535).

Or maybe you'd like to celebrate Valentine's Day Willy Wonka-style with an all-night party at New York City's fashionable Chocolat Michel Cluizel. The boutique will shut its doors to the public and shower you and your party of up to 40 with exquisite Morello cherries aged in kirsch and enrobed in chocolate; creamy chocolate ganache covered in milk chocolate and rolled in cocoa powder; raspberry-filled cocoa chocolate cups; heart-shaped dark chocolate bonbons; candied orange slices dipped in chocolate; a pot of warm chocolate, and, of course, champagne.

Extravagant, romantic, $10,000. Call 212-477-7335.

Sweethearts for pet lovers

If she's allergic to chocolate (but not animals), Necco Wafers has more pet-friendly sayings in its Sweethearts Conversation Hearts.

Set her heart aflutter with candies marked with sayings such as My Pet, Bear Hug, Purr fect, Love Bird, Go Fish, Top Dog, Cool Cat and Puppy Lover. Not extravagant, not romantic, but under $5.

The last word

"An intensely chocolate dessert will activate any endorphin known to man." -- Grant Showley, American chef and restaurateur