Tired of giving your Valentine the same old box of chocolates or bottle of perfume?

German pastry chef Bernd Siefert has a better idea: Buy a gift that offers both — chocolate hearts infused with perfume oil, a romantic blend of good scents and good taste.

Siefert was looking to create something different this year. During a trip to Japan — the world champion pastry chef travels frequently for work — he got his inspiration. While walking to the pastry section in a classy department store where a Japanese company sells his products, he had to pass through a large area devoted to perfumes.

"Why not do something with perfume?" he asked himself. The scent might make his chocolate creations even better.

"My heart is with sweets," he says, and chocolate is one of his favorites. He quotes an old German saying to prove he is not alone: "Nine out of ten people like chocolate and the tenth is lying."

To make the chocolate hearts he is selling this year, he extracts oils from geranium, lotus and jasmine blossoms, then infuses them in chocolate praline. A decorative box with a 100-gram perfume chocolate heart — about 3½ ounces — costs 12.95 euros (about $16.50).

The hearts are just one of his numerous creations. "My specialty is big cakes," says the tall, burly 41-year-old. Past concoctions include a gigantic pound cake representing Neuschwanstein Castle to feed 5,000, a 23-foot-tall Christmas tree cake, a cake priced at 15,000 euros for the Russian mafia.

Siefert, who won the world championship pastry title in 1997 in Stuttgart, started helping out in his father’s Konditorei in Michelstadt when he was just 6 years old. Now he is a master of homemade ice cream, cookies, candies, jams and elaborate sugar creations. He’s been a consultant for an Italian ice cream producer and to a German marmalade company. He conducts seminars and classes on pastry making and has written three pastry cookbooks. He frequently appears on German television.

The prime minister of the German state of Hessen asked him to develop a special chocolate collection. The result was six flavors of Hessen Pralinen, including one based on the Hessen Grüne Sosse, a green sauce made from seven herbs.

"I like working with seasonal products," he says, as he offers a taste of his rhubarb ice cream — a spring favorite with a hint of cinnamon. Another signature creation is Kartoffel Stollen (potato cake), which he made for "potato week." "It’s now more famous than my regular stollen," he admits, saying that he adds rosemary to his regular stollen to give it a distinctive taste.

Siefert acknowledges that he probably could get a job anywhere in the world, but he prefers to stay in his hometown, where, along with his wife and sister, he runs Das Weltmeister Cafe, a cafe/pastry shop with cases of his delectable cakes, tubs of ice creams and shelves of dozens of kinds of jams.

During a recent visit, I couldn’t resist some of the innovative jam combinations: Asian Forest — wild blueberries and lemongrass; Kilimanjaro — banana, pineapple, hot pepper and rum, and another with raspberries and red pepper. I came home with seven jars.

Find more about Siefert at www.bernd-siefert.de and www.cafesiefert.de.

Photojournalist Leah Larkin, a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, lives in France.

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