berry chocolate goodness

I made chocolate covered strawberries yesterday morning for my friend's 22nd birthday. It was such a nice surprise since they turned out beautifully for my first try (after I made a big chocolate mess in the kitchen.) We passed the Godiva store on Monday and my friend wanted some choco covered strawberries so I'd thought I'd give it a try. What's better than homemade chocolate strawberries? Plus the pictures turned out great!

A few things I learned along the way just in case you're ever in the chocolate creation mood.

• This video helped me get started on the whole process.
• Quality chocolate is important because a. taste and b. it melts easier.
• Chocolate clumps up apparently so don't put them in plastic bags for decorating until you're ready.  It helps if you melt it (in a bowl) every so often so it's easier to work with.
• If you're microwaving the chocolate, do it in small amounts like 10-15 seconds.
  I melted mine in intervals of 25 seconds because I'm lazy.
• There are lots of ways to decorate strawberries! Use both dark and milk chocolate so you get two colors; you can also mix the two together to get a light brown color (which doesn't look as pretty in my opinion.)
• You can also use nuts, coconut flakes, etc. for decoration. I totally forgot about this until after they were chilled.
• Oh yeah, and it creates a mess but it's really fun to work with if you like working with food!

    

So you can see the mess I've created above, which really isn't that bad. My dad woke up just in time to help me get the toothpicks (yay!) I also learned that my friend really likes chocolate covered strawberries so I'll be making things again soon since I have extra chocolate chips left over and making the designs were really fun.

It's a great gift idea, especially if it's around the holiday time and you want to give a small yet personal gift to those around you. Or you can bring it to a party and have people be impressed!

• Have you made chocolate covered strawberries before? How did they turn out?
• Any tips for next time?