Valentine’s Day Strawberries!

I love Valentine’s Day…I mean, who doesn’t?!?!  The flowers and the chocolates and the love….sigh.

Well I really love Valentine’s Day because we get to crank out A LOT of treats in a very short amount of time and this year we set a record for the sheer number of sweets we sent out the door!

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries are always a hit for Valentine’s Day and we dipped over 1000 (over 80 dozen!) of them this year!  This meant we purchased A LOT of strawberries.  If you’ve never made these delicious treats, they are worth the effort that they require.  First, you need to wash and dry them thoroughly.  When you go to dip them in the chocolate, they need to be completely dry.  Once clean and dry, you’ll need to melt your chocolate.  If microwaving, be sure to heat them in short increments with lots of stirring to keep the chocolate from burning.  You can tell when it burns because it becomes a solid and smells bad.  Not fun!

Once your chocolate is melted, hold the strawberry by the stem and gently dip it in the chocolate.  Set it on parchment paper to dry.  Once the base coat is set, melt a contrasting color of chocolate for the drizzle.  Pour the chocolate in a piping bag and snip the tip just a little bit.  Move the bag back and forth across the strawberries to drizzle your pattern.  Allow the chocolate and drizzle to completely set before packaging.  Keep refrigerated and enjoy your strawberries within 3 days.