Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Description
This is one of the easiest and fun dessert recipes to make. Despite being one of the easiest ones, chocolate covered strawberries are one of those fancy, bite-size desserts that everybody loves. They’re beautiful,impressive looking and perfect for parties, Valentine’s Day and weddings as a delicious treat or a romantic dessert. One batch of chocolate covered strawberries only takes about 30 minutes to make. This is such a simple recipe with just two basic ingredients but the quality of chocolate is essential. A cheap bag of chocolate chips will not taste as good or melt easily. The higher the quality of chocolate, the better they will taste and really helps give the strawberries a nice beautiful coat after dipping.
Ingredients
Instructions
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Wash and dry the strawberries. Let them to air dry at room temperature. The closer to room temperature your strawberries are easier to coat with the chocolate.
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Melt the chocolate in the microwave as instructed on the package or you can melt the chocolate in a double boiler as a fancy way.
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Line a plate with aluminum foil.
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Dip each strawberry in melted chocolate and lay them on foil lined plate.
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You can sprinkle crushed walnuts (or nuts or coconut) on top.
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Place in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
Bon Appetit!
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Note
Tips to Make Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Select ripe strawberries that are bright red so they look beautiful and flavorful as well. Discard any strawberries with soft spots.
The most important thing is to make sure your strawberries are completely dry before dipping in your chocolate! If there's too much moisture on your strawberries, the chocolate will not stick properly.
The closer to room temperature your strawberries are easier to coat with the chocolate.
Working with one strawberry at a time, hold the strawberry by the stem and dip in the chocolate, turning to coat. Lift strawberry, let excess drip off, then immediately place on aluminum foil lined baking sheet
Frequently Asked Questions
The most important thing is to make sure your strawberries are completely dry before dipping in your chocolate! If there's too much moisture on your strawberries, this will cause the chocolate to seize and turn lumpy and solidify and the chocolate will not stick properly.
The closer to room temperature your strawberries are easier to coat with the chocolate.
Strawberries should be at room temperature when dipping them in chocolate. In addition, avoid putting them in the refrigerator to set the chocolate; the chocolate should be set at room temperature also.
Refrigerate chocolate covered strawberries for 15 minutes until chocolate hardens. After that they do not have to go into the refrigerator the moment you've had enough. In fact, the best way to store chocolate covered strawberries is by keeping them at room temperature, as they retain the most flavor at room temperature. But if you're planning on saving your chocolate covered strawberries for more than one day, they'll need to be refrigerated. Unfortunately, this means that they will sweat a little bit. To minimize sweating, place a couple sheets of paper towels into the bottom of an airtight container.
The ideal chocolate for melting and dipping is called "couverture" chocolate. Couverture chocolate has a higher ratio of cocoa butter to cocoa, which helps it melt more smoothly. If you can't find couverture, use the best quality chocolate that you can find. I prefer using baking chocolate instead of chocolate chips.  (What is the difference between baking chocolate and regular chocolate?The difference between cooking and 'normal' eating chocolate is largely how much the chocolate is sweetened. Baking chocolate usually contains little or no sugar compared to ordinary eating chocolate, and has a higher percent of cocoa solids.) Baking chocolate is pure chocolate without any added ingredients and therefore tastes superior but more importantly for our purposes, it melts and coats much better. But you can also use chocolate chips for quick-and-dirty dipping.
Dark chocolate is the best option, as milk chocolate is typically quite high in sugar and cream. Bittersweet dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa (generally 60 percent to 80 percent) offers the most health benefits without tasting too bitter to enjoy.
Chocolate chips are the perfect size for melting. They are already uniform in size which helps for even melting and they're meant to survive in the oven, after all, so a few gentle zaps in the microwave won't do much damage. Chips don't contain enough cocoa butter to temper, so the melted chocolate will harden with a streaked or swirled appearance. If you choose to use pieces of a chopped chocolate bar, make sure to try break them into uniform pieces. Do not add any water when melting chocolate.
