Chocolate Covered Strawberries

My husband needed to get some cash out one day, and he only needed to get $10.  I can't remember if it was for quarters to do laundry or for something else, but that's besides the point.  Usually if we need less than $20, we go to the store and get something that we needed anyway and get the cash back option. 

This particular day, my husband brought home strawberries since they were on sale.  I didn't want to just cut them up.  I felt like doing something special with them, so I decided to try my hand at Chocolate Covered Strawberries. 

After a small amount of research online, I confirmed the basics and started the experiment.  I had two bags of chocolate chips in the pantry.  They were supposed to go towards making chocolate chip cookie dough to keep in the freezer, but I hadn't made that yet, so their purpose got shifted.  I decided to use my dark chocolate chips because my husband and I generally prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate.

I washed the strawberries, patted them with paper towels and set them on my cooling rack to finish drying.  If you get water in your melted chocolate, it can cause the chocolate to seize up and it won't be as smooth and pretty.  It also won't stick to the berries as well.

Once they were completely dry, I set them on a paper towel lined plate until I was ready to dip.  You want the strawberries to be at room temperature for this as well.  Aren't they pretty?

I started out by putting some water in a pan and placing a glass bowl over the water (not touching it) with about 1/2 bag of chocolate chips in it.  Essentially I created a double boiler.  As you heat the water to a boil and stir, the chocolate chips start to melt.

You keep this up until the chocolate is almost fully melted (You don't want to overheat the chocolate).  I took it off the pan of simmering water and let the last little bits finish melting under it's own heat until it was nice and smooth.

You can also melt chocolate chips in the microwave, but I've found that it's a lot easier to burn your chocolate if you aren't being very careful.

I had a baking sheet lined with wax paper already prepared.  So the next step was dipping.  This step is kind of self explanatory.  You just take hold of the top of the berry and dip it in the chocolate.  Once it's covered to your satisfaction, give it a little shake to help the chocolate make its way into the little nooks and crannies where the seeds are (and sometimes it will get rid of any excessive chocolate... if there is such a thing), then lay it on the wax paper lined cookie sheet.

At this point you can put them in the fridge (or in the freezer for a shorter time) and allow the chocolate to set up.  I went one step further though.  I also had some white chocolate chips left over from the last time I made white chocolate chip and cranberry scones.  So I thought I'd melt some of that up and make my strawberries a little fancier.

Because I didn't need a lot, I didn't use the double boiler method to melt these.  I used the microwave.  I wasn't exactly successful with that.  I didn't really fail either.  I'm not sure if I had the wrong technique, or if there's something about white chocolate that makes it melt differently than regular chocolate.  The white chocolate seemed to start melting, but it went straight from "almost melted and thick" to grainy.  The grainy version still tasted like white chocolate, so I added a little almond milk and that seemed to do the trick.  The white chocolate grains seemed to melt/dissolve into the almond milk and thin out enough for me to drizzle the mixture onto the strawberries.  I just used a fork to make messy drizzles.  If you wanted to make them nice and neat, you could always spoon this mixture into a bag, cut a corner, and use it like a icing bag.

See?  Messy. 

After this was done, I put my strawberries into the freezer (mainly because I didn't have any room for a full tray of anything in the fridge) for no more than 10 minutes.  That seemed to be plenty of time for the chocolate to harden back up.

I left them out on the counter until we were ready for dessert.  They can be eaten cold or at room temperature.  They're good either way.  It's best if you eat them the same day that you make them.  If you can't eat them all, store them in the fridge.  We had a few that we didn't eat.  I packed them up so that we could take them with us to work the following day.  They were still good, but it seemed like the chocolate (or more specifically the sugar in the chocolate) pulled some of the juices out of the berries and trapped them in the chocolate shell.  While this isn't really a bad thing, I can see how it could be worse if you didn't eat them quickly.

All in all it was a successful experiment and a yummy one.

Try it... it's not that hard.

Thanks and happy eating.