These patriotic chocolate covered strawberries are one of the most simple yet decadent little treats to serve at festive parties and come together in a snap.
12ounceswhite chocolatecandy melts, almond bark, or white chocolate chips
red, white, and blue sprinklesoptional for decorating. Nonpariels, Jimmies, colored sanding sugar, or star sprinkles
Instructions
First, line a sheet pan with waxed or parchment paper and place it in the freezer to chill. Insert a skewer into the stem end of each strawberry.
Place the chocolate and candy melts into separate glass or heat proof bowls.
Put about 2 inches of water into three saucepans and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off the heat and set the bowls of chocolate over the water to melt. Stir chocolate until smooth.
Remove the sheet pan from the freezer.
Using the skewer as a handle, dip the fruit into the chocolate. Lift and turn, allowing excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl. Place dipped berries on the chilled lined sheet pan.
Repeat with remaining strawberries.
Decorating Options
Have fun with the designs. We switched between colors mainly using white chocolate as the base but also dipped some of the berries into blue as the base. Then top with the remaining two colors in any design/pattern you would like.
FOR DRIZZLING - add the melted chocolate to a piping bag or ziplock bag with the corner snipped off and gently drizzle in horizontal lines. You could also dip a fork into melted chocolate/candy melts and drizzle over the dipped strawberries.
RED WHITE AND BLUE - Dip the berry into red chocolate first (or leave the berry plain, its red on its own!), allow to set, then dip in white chocolate a little more than half way up the berry. Carefully roll the end in blue sprinkles before the chocolate sets. For the blue sprinkles you can use either Jimmies, nonpareils, or coarse decorating sugar.
FLAG BERRIES - Dip the berry into white chocolate, allow to set, then dip the end of the berry into blue chocolate and allow to set. Drizzle red lines over the white portion and dot the blue portion with white chocolate to mimic the look of the flag. You could also add white star sprinkles instead of dotting with white chocolate.
Notes
Chocolate covered strawberries are best served the day they are made, however, you can prep them the night before if you are on a time crunch. Keep them in an air-tight container kept in the refrigerator. The berries may begin to sweat as they sit in the refrigerator.
We used white chocolate chips for the white base, but vanilla almond bark or white candy wafers work as well. You will also want to grab either red and blue gel food coloring to tint the white for decorating or simply use red and blue candy wafers to save you some prep time.
Use a double boiler or a bowl set onto a saucepan of simmering water to melt your chocolate. The microwave will work, but if left in too long can scorch the chocolate and ruin the consistency. Slow melting is much safer and produces smooth, silky chocolate.
You can use a fork dipped in melted chocolate to drizzle. If you want to be more precise, put some melted chocolate in a plastic zipper bag and snip a tiny piece off the corner. This will act as a piping bag and you will have more control and be able to drizzle slowly.