Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

Twice a year (for Sweetest Day and Valentine's Day) we sell our hand-made, hand-dipped chocolate covered strawberries.

We purchase our strawberries directly from Heinen's, where they are literally hand-picked for us so that we get only the best, juiciest, sweetest berries of the bunch.


After we go through and hand-inspect each berry, our "dippers" hand-dip each strawberry in chocolate (milk or dark) and then do a chocolate drizzle over the top in the other type of chocolate. Every day we sell these, we make them fresh right before we open the store and then throughout the day.

Unfortunately, chocolate-covered strawberries have a short shelf life, they are really at their best in the first day, maybe two. This is due to the amount of liquid in the strawberry and the tendency of it to get a bit mushy with time. However, that shouldn't matter to anyone, because who will have any left after a day anyways? :)

Marshmallow Cream Eggs

This basically takes over where the last marshmallow recipe left off. Here, the marshmallow cream is over a flame to keep the mixture smooth and pour-able while the eggs are being shaped.


The process is exactly the same as pouring the cream eggs, we are just dealing with a very different type of mix. The marshmallow cream is much more difficult to pour. Here, Tom is putting the finishing touches on a row of eggs.


Here is a close-up view of the finished product. Creamy, smooth marshmallow cream eggs! Once the mixture cools and firms up a bit, they will get their chocolate coating.

Maple Cream Eggs

Here is the beginning of the creamy nougat base for maple cream eggs. The fun thing about these eggs is watching them go from looking so plain to looking so yummy in a very short period of time!


Here you see one of the best ingredients around: brown sugar. The brown sugar helps to both give the candy great flavor but to also help give it the nice brown color!


As you can see, the sugar mixture bubbling away in the kettle is certainly not too pretty. But I promise you it smells wonderful!


Here, Tom is preparing the corn starch trays that will hold the candy in its proper shape while it cools.


These are the molds that we use to make the impressions in the corn starch. As you can see, there are different sizes/shapes for different products. The eggs are egg-shaped (obviously) and larger while the cream molds are smaller and more spherical.


Here, Tom has gone through and made all the indentations for the eggs. The corn starch acts as a cooling agent for the candy and the candy will stay here until it is time for them to be dipped.


Here is the sugar mixture, continuing to bubble! As we always say here, temperature is SO important, so the thermometer is fairly constantly in the liquid to make sure we are very exact!


Our candy base mix is starting to look good, nice and gooey and creamy!


You can't forget maple flavoring! Here it is added before the final mixing! The two mixtures are combined together and it's time to pour!


To properly pour the candy without overfilling/spilling, a small funnel-like apparatus is used with a wooden stick-like object. Tom raises and lowers the stick in order to modify how much liquid is let out.


And here is what they look like! Don't they look delicious??