Who doesn’t like chocolate covered strawberries, especially on Valentine’s Day? Last year, I made several orders of these but just the traditional chocolate and white chocolate ones. I’ve always wanted to color the chocolate, but Every. Single. Time. I messed up the chocolate because, come to find out, most dipping chocolate is made with vegetable oil and not actual chocolate. So adding traditional food coloring to oil based dipping chocolate will instantly make your creamy chocolate gritty and clump up. I’ve wasted a lot of chocolate this way.
However, this year I tried something new, luster dust coloring. And it worked like a charm. Now that I finally figured out an easy way to color dipping chocolate, I’m sharing it with all of you.
Ingredients:
1 lb of fresh strawberries
White chocolate melting wafers
Dark chocolate melting wafers (optional)
Pink luster dust or your choice of color
Baking tools:
Medium sauce pan
Stainless steel bowl
Spatula
Piping bag or sandwich ziplock bag
Parchment paper
Oven mit
Step 1: Rinse the strawberries and let them dry. If you get water in the chocolate it will clump.
Step 2: Add 3-5 cups of water to your sauce pan. The water should not touch the bottom of the stainless steel bowl and the bowl should fit nicely into the sauce pan. You can also use glass, but I’ve always used stainless steel.
Step 3: Turn the burner to medium heat and place the stainless steel bowl over the sauce pan. This technique is called bain-marie. See picture below. I got the picture from Pinterest. I forgot to take a photo of mine.
Step 4: Add half a bag of white chocolate melting wafers of your choice to the stainless steel bowl. I always use Ghirardelli chocolate melting wafers.
Step 5: While the water is heating up to melt the chocolate, lay a piece of parchment paper on a flat surface. Once the chocolate starts to melt, pour in the remaining chocolate and stir with a rubber spatula. The chocolate should start to look creamy.
Step 6: After the chocolate is smooth, remove the bowl from the heat (with an oven mit, the bowl will be hot) and dip the strawberries into the chocolate (one at a time) then place on the parchment paper to allow the chocolate to set.
Step 7: After all your strawberries are dipped, sprinkle 1 tbsp of luster dust in the leftover chocolate. Mix the luster dust into the chocolate with the rubber spatula.
Step 8: Pour the colored chocolate into the piping bag or sandwich bag. I always use sandwich bags. 😬 Then cut the end of the bag off with scissors. I make a very small cut to make thin lines.
Step 9: Move your hand back-and-forth while applying just a little bit of pressure to the bag to make the decorative lines on the strawberries.
Step 10: Allow the chocolate to completely set then you can box them for a gift or enjoy them yourself.
You would take the same steps above for dark chocolate covered strawberries too, minus the luster dust.
That’s it! Just 30 minutes to make pretty Valentine’s Day worthy chocolate covered strawberries. 🍓🍓
I hope you enjoyed my post. I would love to know if you try my luster dust method and what you think. Until next time. Xo
