Hello Bakers,
On Saturday’s show, I demoed how to cover strawberries for Mother’s day. Here is the link to the show: Saturday's Show
Chocolate covered strawberries became a trend for Mother’s Day sometime in the 1990s - I remember dipping hundreds of them for Mother’s Day Brunches when I worked in luxury hotels and fine dining. Mother’s Day is one of the busiest restaurant days of the year.
At home, dipping strawberries is pretty straightforward and it’s a fun activity to do with kids.
The MOST important thing is to use the correct chocolate.
This is one time where we can just buy a bag of chocolate chips and melt them. And this is not the time to temper chocolate with a product as high in water content as strawberries. That is a wasted effort.
So we use coating chocolate - the right kind of coating chocolate.
Look for chocolate wafers - Ghiradelli, Guittard, Merckens, and Bakels.
Candy melts have their place in cake decorating but as a dipping medium for strawberries (it’s not chocolate) it doesn’t have the best flavor.
Chocolate Wafers - Amazon, Walmart, Target and many grocery stores carry them
To get started:
Make space in the refrigerator for the dipped berries to chill.
Wash the strawberries a few hours ahead of dipping. Dry them on a tray lined with paper towels, cover with paper towels and refrigerate until ready to dip.
When ready to dip, melt the chocolate wafers in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stir with a spatula until it is fully melted - try not to overheat.
I usually cover my work surface with parchment paper and work left to right, berries, chocolate and then a parchment lined tray to rest the dipped berries.
The berries can be garnished with sprinkles, dragees and any of the fun decorative blends available. The white chocolate coating can take a small amount of gel color or more oil based color. Oil based flavorings can also be used - Lorann’s work very well. Lorann's oils and flavors
Have fun with your strawberries - surprise Mom or someone you love this May with some delicious chocolate covered strawberries.
