What’s not to love about a chocolate covered strawberry? A beautifully sweet and ripe strawberry covered in a delicious semi-sweet chocolate shell. While this isn’t hard to make, chocolate can be tricky. Sometimes it seizes up, turns gray or can be streaky. By tempering the chocolate, you ensure a perfect finish every time.
HERE’S HOW TO MAKE THEM
Dame Mary Berry, from The Great British Bake Off, says “chocolate melts in a child’s pocket”so you don’t need high temperature to melt chocolate. I do like to use a double boiler instead of the microwave.
How to make a double boiler: In a sauce pan, add about an inch of water to the bottom and set to medium heat. Once simmering, lower the temperature to low and place a glass bowl on top. Make sure the glass bottom doesn’t touch the water. As the steam rises, it warms the bottom of the glass bowl and melts the chocolate. That’s it. That’s a double boiler.
Place two-thirds chocolate chips into the glass bowl, reserving one-third of the chips. Let the chocolate chips sit untouched for a minute or so before stirring. Stir occasionally to ensure the chocolate is melting evenly.
Once the chocolate has melted, remove the glass bowl from the sauce pan, but keep the water simmering. Add the reserved chocolate chips to the melted chocolate and stir until melted and smooth. This will “temper” the chocolate.
Note: Tempering chocolate is the art of warming and cooling the chocolate to stabilize the crystals. It produces a smooth chocolate, perfect for candies, truffles and any dipped fruit. Tempering chocolate can be tricky and traditional methods require a thermometer. My method isn’t traditional, but it works for me. You could also buy already tempered chips called feves, on Amazon.
The tempered chocolate will be smooth and easy to move. As it cools, it will get a matte finish and it will be harder to move. Return the glass bowl over the simmering water for a few seconds until the chocolate is smooth and easy to stir. Remove from the sauce pan and stir to distribute the heat and keep the chocolate “in temperature”. Repeat process until all your strawberries have been dipped.
When dipping the strawberries, you can grasp with your clean fingers or a wooden skewer. Set the dipped strawberries on parchment paper until dry. Enjoy!
