I’ve told the story before, about growing up with my Great Grandfather owning and operating a strawberry orchard..

Truth is, I’ve always loved strawberries. I love strawberries plain, in food, in drinks, the flavour, the smell. Strawberry is one of the only fruits that I enjoy the imitation flavouring of, even. When I go to the grocer, the first place I head is to the fruit stands. Scanning always for fresh red berries. It isn’t strawberry season here yet, but occasionally a few of my regular grocer stops get pretty good shipments in from places like california, although.. if you’ve ever had Oregon or Washington strawberries in the heat of the summer during peak season.. You can definately tell the difference.

Yesterday I went to the produce market. I’d have taken photos, but its not like a farmers market, all rustic and pretty. The produce market is an all year indoor set up, basically ran likneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.come a grocery store, only they have mounds and mounds of fresh fruit and vegetables, and most of the “groceries” they have cater to the large Eastern European community in the area. I love this place, not only because I love the fresh fruits and veggies, but because those eastern european folks have the best butter on the planet. I dont know what the name of the brand is because its written in cyrillic, but.. I love it.

So when I walked in yesterday, expecting to peruse the fruit, pick up some potatoes, grab a lump of butter on the way out and go… I was pleasantly surprised when I set my eyes upon the most beautiful berries I’ve seen since last season.

…And of course I bought some.

The photos you’re seeing might make them look small. They’re not. The ones towards the back are pretty much standard strawberry size, the ones in the front… They’re handfuls.

I must admit, I almost couldnt stop myself from eating them. I saved a few, and decided I would make something even more delicious with them, to have as dessert with dinner tonight.

Everyone knows that chocolate and strawberries go together as good as peaches and cream. As good as cookies and milk and pancakes with syrup. Its just how it goes. I didnt want to make a standard chocolate dipped strawberry. I love how they taste, but I wanted something a little different.

So I made chocolate fondant covered strawberries-

I guess if I really wanted these to sound fancy, I’d call them Enrobed fondant strawberries.. But they’re not fancy.. well, they’re fancier than plain old strawberries I guess, but really, they’re simple to make.. And I used my hands to shape them.. so I guess that takes away a little bit of the allure..

You’ll need-

2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup cream OR
2 tablespoons soymilk (if you want them to be vegan)
2 cups milk chocolate or semi sweet vegan chocolate chips (again, if you want them to be vegan)
1 teaspoon pure almond extract or pure vanilla extract
about a half cup rainbow sprinkles

12 medium to large strawberries (about 20 small strawberries)

First, mix the sugar and cream together. You’ll want a paste-like consistancy. sort of a thick icing, but not as thick as sugar dough. add the flavouring extract and mix thoroughly.

Melt your chocolate chips. You can either do this in 30 second pulses in the microwave (30 seconds in, remove and stir, another 30 seconds in, remove and stir, repeat until completely melted) OR on a double boiler. It really doesnt matter. I used the microwave, even though I dont like the microwave… because its much more simple, and really, to me the microwave is just a way to melt things (butter, chocolate, cheese on nachos. stuff like that).

Add the melted chocolate to the fondant mixture. Mix together until it starts to set up, thicker- kind of like fudge.

If you’re going to make this for other people.. I’d recommend putting on some gloves. I made these for me and my husband, and god knows he’s already got my cooties, so.. I just washed my hands with antibacterial soap for 20 seconds and dried them.

take about a tablespoon and a half of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Press your washed and dried strawberry tip into the ball, and form the ball around the base of the strawberry. At this point, you could freeze them for about half an hour, dip them in melted chocolate and let them set up. That would be delicious. However, I ran out of chocolate so… I didnt get to that point.

I poured my sprinkles into a shallow bowl and rolled the bottom of the berry, the part that would make contact with the plate, into the sprinkles.

At any point after this, they are edible. And I’d definately recommend eating them.. Or I might have to find out where you are, and I’ll eat them myself. They’re SO GOOD.

-A.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:06 pm and is filed under March 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.