_edited_edited.jpg)
Hey friends! It's been quite the week, hasn't it? Those of you also in England can surely understand why I simply could not turn the oven on this week (I should have tried cooking just via the sun...). Using the microwave caused enough of a rise in ambient temperature! Since it's still the height of strawberry season, I thought we'd put those babies to one more good use for you. No blending them up and baking them this week - today's all about keeping them whole but making them even more delicious than they are plain. We're talkin' about vegan chocolate-covered strawberries, obvs.
Now clearly this is not the most involved recipe! But for those of you who haven't made chocolate-covered strawberries before, I'm here to show you just how easy it is. Essentially, you need exactly...two ingredients. Strawberries, and chocolate. And I add salt. And sure, you probably knew that that's all you need, but you thought maybe the process was hard? A little too fussy for you? Nope, it's easy! You need to melt chocolate and to have room in your fridge. Let's get down to it so you can treat yo self any time.
You need to wash your strawberries and then dry them really really well; we don't want the chocolate to touch any water because it'll go 'eww and oh no!' and get a weird texture.
Here's another picture just because man, HOW BEEYOOTIFUL ARE THEY?
So as I said, you need strawberries - I used a standard Tesco punnet - and vegan chocolate. Fun fact: the gigantic Kirkland brand bag of chocolate chips is accidentally vegan! But I recommend buying in bulk from Real Food Source for a more ethical cocoa source! (Also that site is AMAZING.) Whenever you need to melt chocolate, people will tell you how to set up this Rube Goldberg-looking muhfuh double boiler over your stove, putting water in one saucepan and then a glass bowl freaking PERCHED on top of that filled with your chocolate to slowly slowly slowly melt it so it doesn't seize. You know what that gets you? A PILE OF GLASS ON THE FLOOR. Microwaving works fine.
INGREDIENTS
Strawberries, cleaned and dried. However many ya got!
1 cup vegan chocolate chips per 400g strawberries
Sea salt (Maldon flakes, the best)
Optional toppings - cocoa powder, raw sugar, white chocolate to drizzle, more salt (see below), powdered sugar, crushed nuts, whatever you want.
DIRECTIONS
Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Once your strawberries are clean and dry, melt your chocolate. In a glass measuring cup or bowl, pour your chocolate and, if you are like me, your pinch (or two) of sea salt. Salt makes chocolate better.
Microwave on regular/high power (I've never adjusted my wattage) for 30 second intervals. Check every 30 seconds, stir, until it's melted. Mine took 1 minute 20 seconds.
Holding the leafy top of the berry, swirl around your melted chocolate until it's covered.
Place on the parchment-lined tray.
Repeat repeat repeat x however many berries ya got. (NB: any extra melted chocolate, just plop it on the parchment, then after the fridge time you have a little chocolate bar to enjoy.)
Optional toppings: Once the chocolated berries are on the tray, sprinkle your additional toppings.
Refrigerate your tray; it takes about 30 minutes to harden fully.
ENJOYYYYY!
Here's my secret: At step #7, I sprinkled more flaked sea salt on 1/3 of them. I dropped shelled hemp seeds on another 1/3 - hemp seeds are amaaazing for you and give a very very subtle nuttiness.
And on the other third, I sprinkled my little secret weapon: chocolate protein powder! I'm known for adding protein in wherever I can, and sure this amount really isn't doing much, but hey, I like it! As they say, every little helps! Give it a try, it's actually really good!
Tag us on your social media when you make these; let's see how great they look and more importantly, how great they taste!
