Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Chocolate covered strawberries are a simple and amazing treat! They are easy, and with a few tips and tricks can come out looking just as beautiful. We recently did a fundraiser for my husband’s upcoming medical mission trip to Nairobi, Kenya. I received many compliments on the look and taste of my strawberries.

Ingredients

Strawberries Milk chocolate chips White chocolate chips Vegetable shortening Wax paper

When you are purchasing strawberries, you want to buy firm ones with no soft spots. If you dip strawberries that are soft or super ripe, they will leak. Go ahead and spend the extra dollar or two on name brand chocolate. Nestle, Ghiratrellis, or Hershey’s. Its a must. If you buy cheap chocolate, you get a cheap taste. I don’t recommend the pre-made dipping chocolate, it is more expensive and doesn’t look or taste as good.

Before you start dipping your strawberries, you need to wash them and let them dry completely. I would do this step a half hour or so before you dip. Once I washed them, I let them drip onto a paper towel, then hand dried them and moved them to a dry paper towel.

You can melt the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler on the stove. I like the double boiler method. I don’t have one, but it was easy to make my own. Just put about an inch of water in a pot and bring to a boil. On top of the pot, place a bowl that doesn’t touch the bottom of the pot. The steam from the boiling water will heat and melt the chocolate without burning it.

Add about a tablespoon of vegetable shortening to the chocolate chips while they are melting, this helps thin the chocolate a bit. While melting the chocolate, scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula. once your chocolate is fully melted, remove from heat (Careful, the bowl is hot).

I dip the strawberries immediately. Just grasp the strawberry by the leaves, dip into the chocolate, leaving maybe a centimeter of strawberry uncovered. Gently drag the bottom of the strawberry on the edge of the bowl to get off excess chocolate. Then sit the berry on wax paper. Let the chocolate cool before drizzling it.

To drizzle the strawberry, you will put the melted white chocolate into a small ziplock bag. Let the chocolate cool for a few minutes before you do this, because it may melt the bag. An easy trick to get the chocolate Into the bag is to use a cup. Open a ziplock bag, place your hand inside, and push the bag down into a cup, wrapping the top of the bag around the edges of the cup. Then, just pour in the chocolate and zip your bag.

You want to be sure your chocolate strawberry and the drizzling chocolate is cool enough before you drizzle it. Drizzling it when too hot will cause both chocolates to melt and look messy. When your chocolate is ready, snip a small hole in the corner of your chocolate-filled ziplock bag. The gently squeeze as you pipe it across your strawberries. This is a fast and easy process, and it doesn’t require much talent (I could do it!) but it makes your strawberries look so much prettier.

Voila! All done! Let them cool and set before moving them from the wax paper. I like to package them in a cute box.