With Louisiana’s strawberry crop emerging and Valentine’s Day on its way, it’s crazy not to try your hand at chocolate-dipped strawberries. They’re ridiculously easy to make and require two ingredients: chocolate and strawberries. (If you want to get fancy and add a white chocolate drizzle, you’ll need a little cream, too.) Don’t sweat it if you don’t have a double boiler to melt the chocolate; a microwave on half-power works fine, as does a glass or metal bowl perched over a saucepan of boiling water.
This recipe works great if you follow a few of rules of thumb. Be sure the strawberries are absolutely dry when you apply the chocolate, or else it will not adhere. And, place the dipped berries on either wax paper or parchment paper as the chocolate hardens. The berries are easy to remove from either of these surfaces. Also, note that white chocolate is harder to melt than regular chocolate, so adding a touch of warmed heavy cream helps give it the texture you need to drip it across the berries. Once it’s at the right consistency, work fast.
Here’s how:
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Chocolate-dipped strawberries
1 pound fresh strawberries, washed and dried with green stems still attached
12-ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 ounces white chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream, slightly warmed
Wash the berries. After air-drying them, pat them dry with paper towels to ensure they are completely dry. Melt the semi-sweet chocolate chips in a double boiler, or in a glass or metal bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Stir with a metal spoon or rubber spatula as the chocolate melts to ensure a smooth consistency. Hold each dry strawberry by its stem and carefully roll the berry in the chocolate. Place each dipped berry on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet. Melt the white chocolate chips in the same manner as the semi-sweet chocolate chips, adding a small amount of heavy cream to ensure the consistency is thin enough to drizzle on the berries. Use a small whisk or fork to drizzle the melted white chocolate over the berries. The chocolate will completely harden within an hour.
Maggie Heyn Richardson is a regular 225 contributor. Reach her at hungryforlouisiana.com.