My father always had a rather substantial strawberry patch. As a child I loved parking myself at the side of his raised-bed garden and eating myself sick when the berries were ripe. Here’s a way to gild the lily no matter what time of year it is. I had a little bit of leftover chocolate so I grabbed a carton of Swiss Almond Crunch cookies from Trader Joe’s and dipped a few of those. Yummy! -E

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Ingredients:
2 pounds strawberries, with stems
8 ounces good quality chocolate, broken into small pieces
4 ounces better quality tempered chocolate, broken into small pieces

Directions:
1. Rinse the strawberries. Pat them dry and let sit at room temperature for two hours or until completely dry.
2. Place the 8 ounces of “good quality” chocolate in a glass bowl over a simmering pot of water. Do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water.
3. Stir the chocolate mixture until smooth and melted. Do not let chocolate reach more than 110˚F.
4. Take the bowl off heat and add the 4 ounces “tempered” chocolate pieces. Stir until melted. When the thermometer reads between 87 and 91˚F, the chocolate is tempered.
5. Working quickly, place a skewer in the center of the strawberry and dip into chocolate. Swirl to cover, shake off excess and place on waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Remove skewers.
6. Let sit at room temperature until set.

Notes:
You can tell a bar of chocolate is tempered when you can feel it ‘crack’ or ‘snap’ as you break it into small pieces. One of my favorite kitchen tools is my Thermapen Mk4 instant-read thermometer, which helps to monitor the temp of the chocolate.

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