Chocolate Covered Strawberries with a Twist

I’ve had chocolate covered strawberries many times and its not the most fascinating desert but I still like making them for desert for a crowd and I never have any left over, everybody loves chocolate covered strawberries. They also look really pretty, are easy to make and this version has a little twist by spiking the strawberries with Amaretto or Cointreau (maybe you spike 1/2 of your strawberries and leave the other 1/2 without alcohol for the kids and and folks who don’t like alcohol).

These make for great holiday treats to bring to parties or give to your neighbor as a Thank you – and are actually quite healthy.

Here is what you need:

1 bar of really good chocolate (My favorite is Ghirardelli or Lindt), chopped
1 bar of really good white chocolate, chopped
1 shot glass Cointreau
1 pound of strawberries with stems (about 20), washed and dried very well
1 syringe/marinade injector (if you inject butter into your Turkey you can use that one or get a separate one e.g. at Amazon)

Directions

Line a baking sheet with paper towels and set the strawberries on it. Fill your syringe with the Cointreau and inject a little bit of Cointreau into each strawberry. Don’t squeeze too much liquid into the berries, they should just have a hint of a taste of Cointreau. Once you are done with that and no liquid is oozing out of the berries transfer them to another baking sheet lined with wax paper.

Now heat the chocolates, put the dark and the white chocolates into 2 separate heatproof medium bowls. Fill 2 medium saucepans with a couple inches of water and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off the heat; set the bowls of chocolate over the water to melt. Stir until smooth. (Alternatively, melt the chocolates in a microwave at half power, for 1 minute, stir and then heat for another minute or until melted.) You do want to make sure not to overheat the chocolate, especially when heating chocolate in a microwave it tends to “burn” really fast and then your chocolate is a big clump of dry chocolate that can not be used for dipping anymore.

Once the chocolates are melted and smooth, remove from the heat. Holding the strawberry by the stem, dip the fruit into the dark chocolate lift and twist slightly, letting any excess chocolate fall back into the bowl. Set strawberries on the parchment paper. Dip approximately 10 strawberries in the dark chocolate and the other half into white chocolate if you like to mix it up. Let the chocolate dry for a little bit. Then pour the rest of the chocolates into two separate Ziploc bags, cut off the bottom (just a tiny hole is needed) and drizzle the white chocolate in zig zag pattern on to the dark dipped strawberries and the dark chocolate on to the white dipped strawberries. Or instead of drizzling chocolate of the opposite color for decoration, sprinkle chopped pistachios and/or hazelnuts on to the strawberries (press the nuts a tiny little bit so that they stay on).

Here is another fun idea how to do the dipping – dip 1/2 of the strawberry first into the dark chocolate, let it dry for a couple minutes, then dip the other half into the white chocolate – hold the strawberry in a little bit of an angle so that you get a diagonal line and you will achieve a good looking pattern.