Chocolate Covered Strawberries

When you think of St. Valentines day, what do you think of? The way I see it is that regardless of your marital status, its an excuse to eat chocolate. Even if you don't eat chocolate on the day of, the sale chocolate is bound to last you a while!


 So although my original plan for Matt didn't work out for today (I'll be making it sometime soon though so stay posted!), I decided that he would be getting home made Chocolate Covered Strawberries! While I was at the store, they had strawberries and raspberries (his favourite!) were on offer, so I bought one of each. 
To make these so they aren't too saccharin, I bought bitter, "Plain Chocolate" to be able to control the amount of sweetness.


Intermittently throughout the melting process, I sprinkled a bit of fruit sugar into the chocolate, mixed it in, and then put it back into the microwave.

Needless to say, they are delicious. I had to use an unorthodox approach to the raspberries though. Once I 

was done dipping all the strawberries into the melted chocolate, I had the tricky task of deciding how to cover the raspberries. I tried putting half of them in a sieve and spooning it on top, but i realised that I was effectively doing the same thing i would be doing if i just threw them all into the bowl, so that's just what I did.

Recipe:


200g Plain Chocolate, coarsely chopped
400g Whole Strawberries
150g Whole Raspberries
1/8 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
to taste, Fruit Sugar*


Cover a plate (or two) with seran wrap or some other greaseproof paper/ foil.
Melt the chocolate in either a microwave, using a microwave safe bowl at 30 second intervals on high. Stir between each interval. 
If you have a double boiler or bain marie, fill the bottom with water, but not high enough that the water touches the top portion while boiling. Put the chocolate in and melt, stirring frequently.
In the last minute of melting, add in the fruit sugar and vanilla, as well as any other flavouring desired to make sure that it mixes in properly. 
While melting the chocolate, wash the berries and pat dry. This step is important, so don't skip it! If the berries are wet, the chocolate is less likely to set to it and it may crumble.
Remove the chocolate from heat. Hold the strawberries at the stem and individually dip them into the melted chocolate, using a spoon to cover them if needed, and place them on the covered surface. Repeat until finished.
As stated above, the best way i found to cover the raspberries was to put them in the chocolate and stir them. When thoroughly covered, spoon them onto the plate. They will probably stick together, but they taste delicious!
Let set for 30mins, or less if in the fridge, and then enjoy!


*You can use another type of sugar, but fruit sugar is easier to dissolve. If you are using castor sugar especially, it may help it to grind it a bit before adding it into the chocolate to prevent graininess. 


Again, sorry about the bad quality pictures, hopefully that will change soon! 


xx Julie