Chocolate Covered Strawberries with White Chocolate Drizzle

I have big plans for all the strawberries I picked last week, but so far have gotten off to a slow start. We've been eating the strawberries every day but no tarts, jams or ice creams yet. The girls have been taking some in their lunch bags on school days and I have been eating them by the handful in my morning cereal and once on some vanilla ice cream. Over the weekend, I dipped some strawberries into milk chocolate and then drizzled them with white chocolate for a decadent dessert.

The Early Glow variety of strawberries I picked last Thursday are very small, but also very juicy and flavorful. Dipped in chocolate, each prepared berry is about 24 calories. If you use the average sized strawberries that are most often found in the grocery store, each prepared berry is about 42 calories. The bigger berries are only a few calories more, but they do have more surface area and hence more chocolate. Either way, this recipe makes a sweet, luscious treat for under 100 calories per serving.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries with White Chocolate Drizzle

18 small strawberries, such as the Early Glow variety
or 12 medium sized strawberries
4 oz. milk or dark chocolate
1/2 oz. white chocolate

Choose a good quality chocolate that tastes great by itself. I have used both chocolate chips and squares of a Belgian chocolate bar with good results.

Rinse the strawberries and lay them in a single layer on a paper towel at room temperature to dry. Don't rinse them too far in advance from preparing the recipe because berries deteriorate quickly after coming in contact with water. At the same time, be sure the berries are dry before dipping them into the chocolate.

Place chocolate in a microwave safe glass dish and microwave for 10 seconds.

Remove from microwave and stir with a spoon. This step distributes the uneven heat caused by the microwave and helps melt the chocolate evenly.

Return chocolate to the microwave and heat for an additional 7-10 seconds, remove and stir.

Be very careful not to heat the chocolate too long in the microwave once it starts to melt. Do a lot of stirring to speed up the melting process. When chocolate is heated beyond its melting point, it quickly turns dry and crumbly and can't be made smooth again.

When the chocolate is almost completely melted, simply keep stirring with the spoon until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth.

Line a plate or a cookie sheet with waxed paper.

Hold strawberry by its stem if the stems are sturdy enough, or by the stem end and dip the strawberry into the chocolate, turning it to coat with the chocolate.

Gently place the chocolate dipped strawberries onto the waxed paper.

Place sheet of strawberries on a level surface in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to set the chocolate.

Repeat the microwave melting method described above for the white chocolate, but at 5-7 second increments.

When the white chocolate is melted and smooth, spoon the melted chocolate into a small sandwich bag and snip a bottom corner of the bag to make a small hole. Don't make the hole too big or it will come out in clumps instead of a drizzle.

Gently squeeze the sandwich bag to drizzle the melted white chocolate over the chocolate covered strawberries.

Store strawberries in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Enjoy! :)