Nothing say love more than Chocolate Dipped Strawberries. These make a great gift for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, a birthday, Anniversaries and any special occasion.
With just a little fancying up you can take these up a level or two and make you own gourmet chocolate covered strawberries. Give it a try, but a few candy cups and a nice box or two and you have a gift fit for a Queen.
Let’s go over the ingredients first. They are simple and you can make many substitutions and additions to make fabulous treats
- Strawberries – Choose the desired size you want. Generally larger ones are more impressive. To prepare for dipping, wash them well and pat them dry with a paper towel. Set aside to air dry. Water is an enemy to chocolate and will cause it to seize up, so take the extra time for the strawberries to air dry.
- Chocolate – for dipping. You can almost use anything.
- I am using chocolate chips today. When heating only apply minimal heat so you don’t burn the chocolate.
- A coating chocolate would work great because you do not have to worrying about tempering and they are easy to thin. Also they are available in many different colors. If you decide to tint your own colors from white chocolate, do not use liquid base colorings, oil base or powdered is best. The liquid food colorings can cause the chocolate to seize up.
- Baking chocolate or couverture chocolate. You can pick up some very luxurious chocolates here. These will have to be tempered. So this is extra work.
- Chocolate thinner. You can use melted vegetable shortening, some no-taste oils like canola or better yet paramount crystals. Paramount crystals are designed for thinning chocolates.
- Decorations – sanding sugars, non-perils and other type of quins/decorations can be used.
- Wax Paper or Parchment Paper. To set you strawberries on once they have been dipped. You can transfer them to glassine or decorative candy cups for your presentation.
- Bowl to melt chocolate in.
- Parchment paper cones or disposable plastic cones.
- Decorative boxes or serving platters.
How to fold a parchment paper cone.
I am planning on using white chocolate and a pink chocolate to add decorations to my strawberries. Rather than use a disposable bag, I have opted to make a parchment paper bag. This seems complicated, but in reality it is quite simple. While I used a stapler in my demos, I recommend you use a piece of tape so it less likely to get fall off and get into the food.
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- Holding parchment paper triangle getting ready to fold in into a cone.
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- Take one end and toll it around on itself as shown and bring the point to the point in the middle.
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- I am going to secure this point with a staple.
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- Take the other point and roll fold it around the front and have the point meet in the back.
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- Where the three points meet,secure with tape or a staple.
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- You have made a parchment cone.
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- Fold the point end down a few time and secure with tape or a staple.
Chocolate Dipping the Strawberries
First thing I do is melt the chocolate chips in the microwave on 15 second intervals. I make sure to stir well after every heat and only use a minimal amount of heat. I also added some oil to thin my chocolate. Next I dipped my strawberries by holding them stem end, shaking off the extra chocolate then placing on wax paper to set.
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- Melted and thinned chocolate chipped for dipping the strawberries in.
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- Placing dipped strawberries on wax paper for chocolate to set.
I am done dipping the strawberries in chocolate so I melted some white and some pink chocolate coating pieces. If you need to, think them. I next filled my parchment paper cones with the melted chocolate. I used a glass to hold the cone while I poured melted chocolate in. Folded down the top to seal in the chocolate then I snipped off the point as needed for the desired size of chocolate stream I wanted.
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- Getting set up to drizzle and decorate strawberries.
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- Using a glass to hold the paper cone while I fill it with melted chocolate.
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- Trimming the end of the parchment cone off for desired stream thickness of chocolate drizzle.
Next we place a strawberry on a sheet of wax paper and drizzle it with melted chocolate. You can now transfer to another sheet and sprinkle the wet chocolate with sanding sugar, non-perils or some other decorations as desired. I did several different color combinations. Make them individual and all different if you wish. Enjoy
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- Chocolate dipped strawberry with a white chocolate drizzle.
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- Drizzling melted pink chocolate onto chocolate dipped strawberries.
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- Strawberries dipped in chocolate with white and pink chocolate drizzles.
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- Chocolate Dipped Strawberry drizzle with pink then white chocolate.
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries Recipe
- 2-1/3 cups chocolate chips (14 ounces or 400grams)
- 4 tablespoons canola oil
- Strawberries
- Additional coating chocolates as desires - White, Colored (Candy melts, Merkens Compound etc.)
- Clean and wash the strawberries. Pat dry with a paper towel and set aside to completely air dry,. Any water remaining on the strawberries could cause you chocolate to seize up so let stay on the safe side here.
- Prepare you paper cones, especially if this is you first time doing things. after you make a few you will become a pro in no time.
- Melt you dipping chocolate and thin as needed.
- Dip your strawberries, shaking off extra chocolate and set on wax./parchment paper for chocolate to set.
- Melt the drizzling chocolate and then fill paper cones. Snip the tips at desired opening size to allow you to drizzle the chocolate.
- Drizzle the strawberries. I used 2 different type of chocolate and maybe them in different combinations. You can do the same.
- Allow the chocolate to set then place in glassine or candy cups and box or serve on a decorative platter.
Watch How to Make Chocolate Dipped Strawberries.
