Tag: featured

Strawberries and Chocolate…the perfect combination.  When my husband asked me to come up with a dessert to pass out to the moms of our church for Mother’s Day, I knew exactly what to make.  Chocolate covered strawberries are delicious on their own, but when you add a drizzle of white chocolate across the top they are even better!  I have to admit, that I didn’t quite know what I was getting into when I said yes to dipping 500 chocolate covered strawberries for Mother’s Day at the Stirring.  I may or may not have stayed up until 2 AM finishing these tasty little treats!  Lesson learned, next time, I will ask for help 🙂

Here are a few tips to make the perfect chocolate covered strawberries.  First of all, choose berries with pretty stems.  They look much more appetizing.  Use white cupcake holders to place your dipped berries on so they each have their own holder.  Rinse your strawberries and dry them on paper towels.  Do not skip this step!  It’s essential to dry each strawberry completely before dipping or the chocolate will not set correctly.

Once your berries are dry you are ready to dip.  Melt your chocolate.  I used Wilton’s candy melts in dark cocoa for the dipping and in bright white for the drizzles.  Dip each strawberry and place on a individual cupcake holder to set.  Once your dark chocolate has hardened, you can melt the white.  I used a spoon to drizzle the white chocolate over each berry.   In no time at all, you can have a platter of delicious chocolate covered strawberries to serve at your next party, or to just enjoy with your family.

Teacher gifts can get expensive, especially when you have 3 children and each has several teachers and classroom aides.  Last school year I decided to make my own teacher gifts.  I designed these embellished clothes pins and gave each teacher about 10 of them.  I packaged them in festive mason jars with straw lids.  I loved them so much that I had to make a few for myself as well.

I used my Cricut machine to cut card stock in several shapes for the paper embellishments.  I bought patterned scrapbook paper to line the clothes pins with.  This was the most tedious part.  I had to trace the shape of the clothes pin on the back of the scrapbook paper and cut them out using my small paper cutter.  I then used Mod Podge to glue the paper to the clothespin.  After they were dry, I used an exacto knife to trim the excess off of the edges.  Then I painted a coat of Mod Podge over the surface of the paper to seal them in.  I bought a package of tiny buttons and a sheet of glittery rhinestone stickers at Michael’s to use in the center of the embellishments.  Tacky glue worked perfectly to hold all of the tiny pieces together to form each decorated clothespin.

These gifts can be used in the classroom or in the home and will certainly add a pop of color to whatever they are holding in place.