Striped Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

During Valentine’s I saw chocolate dipped strawberries everywhere and wanted to make some. All the boxed V day chocolate strawberries are always long stemmed. I have no idea why chocolate dipped long stemmed strawberries cost $3 a piece when you can’t even eat the long stem. 

B always says I’m “such a guy” and super unromantic, but I digress. I was planning on using normal strawberries for dipping, but while in Chinatown, these gorgeous long stemmed strawberries were on sale. They were the biggest strawberries I had ever seen my whole life. And for only $2 for a 1 lb box! I saw a lady buy at least eight boxes, but I controlled myself and bought only two.

I tried to look up long vs normal strawberries up but didn’t find much information. Apparently, long stemmed and ordinary strawberries are exactly the same fruit. The difference is how they’re cut with the runners attached (which takes longer) and must be packed in a single layer to avoid bruising and bouncing around in the box (sources here and here). 

The key to dipping strawberries is making sure the strawberry is completely dry – otherwise the water will cause the chocolate to seize and fall off the fruit. Also make sure there’s plenty of cleared out space in the fridge so you can stick these babies right in afterwards.

You can dip them in pure chocolate, although I would have liked to thin it out a little with heavy cream if I had some. White chocolate is trickier to melt, and I had trouble piping it out since it was kind of thick and I was using a ziploc bag, but I’ll just pretend the zig zag lines are intentional.

Striped Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Ingredients
2 lbs strawberries (long stemmed or normal)
10 oz dark chocolate, chips or bars
6 oz white chocolate, chips or bars
2 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil (optional)

Directions
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Wash strawberries and dry well using paper towels (water will cause the chocolate to not stick or seize)

Over a double boiler or microwaving in 30 second intervals, heat half the chopped chocolate, stirring. One just melted, add the rest of the chopped chocolate to temper. If the chocolate is too thick, add a little butter or vegetable to make it smooth and shiny

Once melted, dip strawberries into the chocolate and shake off excess. Place on parchment paper and let cool.

Over a double boiler or microwaving in 30 second intervals, melt white chocolate until just melted and stir. Add butter or vegetable oil to smooth if desired.

Scoop white chocolate in a ziploc bag and cut off the tip of the bag. Squeeze to stripe the white chocolate over the chocolate dipped strawberries. Chill the strawberries in a refrigerator for 20 min to let the chocolate set and enjoy!