V has hosted a Super Bowl party for at least six years in a row now. I consider most of our parties joint parties but I think of the Superbowl as his party. He looks forward to it all year, it’s pretty much his favorite day of the year.
The menu has stayed consistent over the years: chicken wings and veggie tempura. Veggies go into the deep fryer first so vegetarians can have their food cooked in untainted oil. Then at halftime, the chicken wings start to come out. I don’t like buffalo wings (or sauce in general) so V always serves the chicken with and without the sauce.
Notice how the two kinds are completely segregated? V accommodates my prejudice against sauce. He is awesome like that.
But I also reciprocate the awesomeness. Each year, I create a football-themed dessert to cap off the food fest. The first year, I made Nutella macarons dyed Indy blue. Last year, I made Oreo cookie truffles shaped like footballs. This year, I made chocolate-dipped strawberries made to look like footballs. It’s my favorite Super Bowl dessert so far. It took some time to make and I had a little bit of a claw-hand after I finished piping the “laces” on but I enjoyed making it.
My inspiration was Shari’s Berries. Theirs look much better than mine but mine also cost much less. I was actually surprised at how easy it was to make these considering chocolate-dipped strawberries are always so expensive. But perhaps it was easy for me because I have several years of fruit-dipping experience. My sister and I worked at Novakovich Orchards dipping dried apricots in chocolate during Christmas time while we were in college.
Nevertheless, here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
- thoroughly washed strawberries with leaves attached. The leaves will serve as your handle when you dip into the chocolate
- melted semi-sweet chocolate. You can melt it on a double boiler or in the microwave. I put it in for 30 seconds, mix it, put in for another 30 seconds, mix, repeat until thoroughly melted.
- melted white chocolate. Use same melting process above. Don’t melt the white chocolate until you’re ready to pipe the lacing on
Equipment Needed
- tray
- parchment paper or wax paper
- fine piping tip
- piping bag or sandwich bag with a corner cut off to fit the piping tip
Directions
1. Line the tray with parchment or wax paper.
2. Pick a up a strawberry from the top and dip into the melted chocolate. Rotate the surface of the strawberry on the chocolate to coat as much of the surface as possible without getting chocolate on the leaves.
3. Gently shake off excess chocolate, carefully flip the strawberry 45 degrees up so the chocolate doesn’t drip down en route to the tray.
4. Place strawberry on tray.
5. Repeat until all your strawberries have been dipped.
6. Refrigerate the chocolate-dipped strawberries for an hour or two until chocolate is completely hardened.
7. Melt white chocolate and begin piping any design you want. You can even skip the piping and just use a fork to drizzle white stripes. If you were so inclined, you could pipe a skull and crossbones design. Your friends won’t know whether to beware or devour the strawberries.
