Homemade chocolate coated strawberries.
When you hear the words ‘chocolate coated’, most people immediately think ‘strawberries’, and for a good reason. They’re an amazing treat and something you simply cannot get enough of.
Eating strawberries in liquid chocolate is to die for, but so are beautifully presented strawberries with a thick coat of set chocolate on the outside. They’re an amazing option for a cheese platter, an impressive way to spoil your other half and a show stopper for the dessert table at your next function.
The best part about chocolate coated strawberries are – you can make them as simple or as intricate as you like! You can dip them in plain milk chocolate and serve them up, or go all out and dress your strawbs in little tuxedos, which is quite the dapper way to be indulged!
Before we get started, we need you to understand how to temper chocolate – which you can learn how to do in our step by step guide here.
Here are some tips to make the dipping of strawberries a lot easier:
- they must be ripe! Although seems quite obvious, you must be able to eat the strawberries within a day or two, so if they’re not ready to be eaten, then avoid using any that require extra ripening
- the strawberries you choose is super important. Try not to choose small strawberries, it makes the job a bit more fiddley and increases the workload, so the bigger the better
- keep the stems on! These will be used as our handles while dipping, so keep them in-tact
- have all of your ingredients you’d like to use ready in small bowls, make sure they’re not too small, enough space so you can roll the strawberry around to ensure full coverag
- avoid using strawberries with bruises
When it comes to decorating or adding extra ingredients to the strawberries, there are many options, some of our favourites are:
- 100s and 1000s or sprinkles – perfect option for the young ones
- coconut, toasted or raw
- grated/flaked chocolate
- crushed nuts – peanuts, pistachio, hazelnuts or almonds
- more chocolate! Yep, chocolate coated strawberries look amazing when there’s multiple layers of different chocolate – have a look as these for an example
You will need the following items before starting:
- a flat sheet of baking paper – size depending on how many strawberries you’re dipping
- a bowl for your chocolate
- a bowl for each of your decorations
- paper towel
- spatula – these $1.50 silicone spatulas from K-Mart are your best friend when using liquid chocolate
Prepping your strawberries:
Having dry, room temperature strawberries is really important. It helps the chocolate stick to the strawberry and prevents ‘shocking the chocolate’ (when you put warm chocolate onto a cold surface, it alters the temperature quickly).
If your strawberries have any signs of moisture, pat them dry thoroughly with paper towel.
Once you’re ready to temper the chocolate, make sure everything is ready in front of you – it’s always best to be super prepared otherwise the chocolate can start to set while you hurry to get ingredients.
Time to prep your chocolate! If you need help tempering chocolate, head here.
Once your chocolate is tempered and your strawbs' are ready to dunk, get yourself set up with your strawberries, chocolate, baking paper and decorations.
Grab ahold of the strawberry by pinching the stems and lower it into the chocolate, giving it a little swirl to assure the chocolate has completely covered the whole surface of the strawberry. Now, bring the strawberry out of the chocolate and let all the excess chocolate fall from the strawberry, this helps prevent a big thick base on the bottom of the strawberry - to assist with this, wipe the base of the strawberry on the lip of the chocolate bowl!
Once you've laid the strawberry down on the baking paper this is when you need to quickly decorate! Give the chocolate a sprinkle of you chosen decoration - this is much easier and cleaner than dunking the strawberry itself into a bowl of decorations.
Chocolate tip: As your chocolate starts to set in the bowl, place it over the simmering water in short, 5 second bursts while mixing the chocolate. If the bowl heats up too much, this can affect the temper of the chocolate.
If you have got yourself well-tempered chocolate, your strawberries will set at room temperature (approximately 18c), otherwise, place them into the fridge for 10-15 minutes before storing them at room temperature.