I am not a candy maker by any stretch of the imagination, and yes, I've seen prettier, but I'm still darned impressed with myself right now. :)Several weeks ago my amazing daughter Amanda had to take a HUGE advanced placement European History test, you know, the kind where they search you and take all of your belongings as you enter the room. She was not even allowed to have a water bottle, and had to be "escorted" to the restroom. It was a scary test! I thought she deserved a reward when it was all over so I bought her some chocolate dipped strawberries. She shared them with everyone...except Emily who couldn't have them. I said "I can make some for you, it should be pretty easy". Well, the funny thing is that making them WAS easy, finding the time to make them wasn't. Three different times I bought a basket of beautiful strawberries, came home and put them in the fridge, and by the time I had a day off to make them they were not pretty anymore. Well here they are Emily, finally, I'm sorry it took three weeks to make them!
6 Beautiful strawberries
1 c Allergen free chocolate chips (I usually use Enjoy Life brand, but I just discovered FMV brand-super cheap- at Fred Meyer...so cheap I guess they couldn't afford to put milk in them...YAY! FMV does have soy lecithin, Enjoy Life does not have any soy)
2 t Spectrum brand Palm shortening
1/2 c Allergen free white chocolate chips
1 t Spectrum brand palm shortening
Put your chocolate chips in a tall narrow plastic cup with the 2 teaspoons of shortening and melt in the microwave on medium setting, stirring about every 30 seconds. I would be more specific but every microwave is different. Mine actually has a "melt chocolate" setting. You can, of course, do this the traditional way with a double boiler, but I like to keep things simple. Also, having your chocolate in a narrow and tall glass makes dipping simple and minimizes waste. Cover a plate with parchment or waxed paper. Grab a strawberry by the top and dip about 3/4 of the way into the chocolate. Lay it with the prettiest side up on the plate. Continue until you are out of chocolate or out of strawberries. Place in the fridge until chocolate is hard.
The white chocolate drizzle is optional and I actually found it to be a little trickier than I expected. Add the other 1 teaspoon of shortening to the white chocolate chips and, again, melt in whatever way you are most comfortable with. Allow to cool slightly (that's the part I had trouble with). Transfer into a plastic sandwich bag. Snip a tiny corner off of the bag and use it to "pipe" the white chocolate drizzle over the top of the strawberries. Enjoy!
A little side note here... I made this recipe soy free with my niece's beautiful baby girl Sophie in mind. Sophie is allergic to almost everything Emily is plus soy. I know that a lot of my readers are allergic to soy and so I do tag all of my recipes that are soy free. If you go to my "labels" on the right side of this blog and click on "soy free" the recipes that come up should all be free of gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, beef, and soy.
5 comments:
Those look beautiful! I have a question - does the vegan white chocolate really taste like white chocolate? I have been thinking about buying a bag of the white chocolate chips but didn't want to spend the money if they tasted yucky.
I'm going to be honest...
I have not yet tried the vegan white chocolate chips that I linked to in this post. I had a different brand in my cabinet already that I used. The ones I used do not taste like white chocolate, but the main ingredient in them is soy flour. I looked at the ingredients in the one I linked to and I think that they would probably taste better than the ones I used. When I get around to trying these ones I will let you know, and if you try them first I would love to hear what you think of them.
Oh yum, I have some organic strawberries resting in the fridge now!
where did you buy spectrum brand? I have been looking for it for my little girl allergic to both dairy and soy and haven't been able to locate it yet.
Chef Mom,
It depends on where you live. I get mine at the little local health food store. Sometimes I also buy it at Fred Meyer. I would think larger chains like Whole Foods Market or Wild Oats would have it too. Another thing I have learned over the years is that if your store does not carry something, ask them if they can get it. I've been surprised by the number of times they could. If all else fails, I order things online a lot too.
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