Making your very own chocolate covered strawberries right from the home is very easy.

You will only need a few items:

Strawberries, as many as you would like.
Toothpicks, for using to dip and cool strawberries. Make sure you have enough for all of your strawberries.
Large pot, for boiling the chocolate.
Chocolate of your choosing, either milk, white, or dark chocolate- or use all three.
Styrofoam, for placing the strawberries on so they may cool.

Steps to perfect dipped swizzled strawberries just like those found at Shari’s Berries:

Place large pot onto stove. Place your chocolate of choice inside of the large pot. Boil.
Continue to boil the chocolate until it reaches a smooth, silky consistency, without any chunks present. Make sure to stir the chocolate regularly while it boils.
Place toothpicks inside of all available strawberries.
Turn stove onto low heat.
Pick up toothpick and dip strawberry into the chocolate. Make sure you get as much of the strawberry as you can.
Stick the toothpick into the styrofoam, with the chocolate side facing upwards.
Leave the strawberry to dry and continue onto the rest of the strawberries.
If you want to use multiple flavors of chocolate, clean out the initial large pot and repeat the process using the other type of chocolate.

In order to get the ‘swizzled’ part onto the strawberries, finish the process with these steps:

Grab a plastic bag and place leftover melted chocolate into the bag. Make sure the chocolate is cool.
Cut out a small piece of the plastic bag on one edge.
Place your cooled strawberries onto a plate.
Lightly sway the plastic bag filled with chocolate over the cooled strawberries, as to make a ‘swizzled’ appearance.
Continue this process until desired appearance is achieved.

Tips for perfect swizzled strawberries:

You may want to place the strawberries into the refrigerator to help them cool faster.
Make sure the chocolate is completely cooled before placing into plastic bag, as this could damage the bag and chocolate.
Having multiple flavors of chocolate is ideal. Try and find out your boyfriend or girlfriend’s favorite chocolate flavors and make a blend.
You may put different flavors of chocolate into one large pot at a time if you wish to blend the flavors.
Handle strawberries with a lot of care as to not mess up the chocolate, which may be fragile and brittle.

Images sources:
1. http://a1128.g.akamai.net/7/1128/497/0001/image.proflowers.com/is/image/ProvideCommerce/GFB_12_BRR10124_W1_PF

2. http://themamareport.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sharis-berries-strawberries.jpg

This recipe is simple to follow and is suitable for beginners. It will only take about 15-20 minutes of actual labor, though the cooking and cooling process will take another 2 hours. The final result will be a decadent cake suitable for any true chocoholic.

Ingredients
For the cake:
A tablespoon of butter
375 grams of unsalted butter
400 grams of dark cooking chocolate
1 ¼ cups of black coffee – freshly brewed for best results.
1 ½ cups of caster sugar
2 ½ cups flour
3 eggs (large)
2 teaspoons baking powder

For the glaze:
300 grams of dark cooking chocolate
125 grams of unsalted butter

What To Do
Preheat your oven to 320 degrees farenheit
In the microwave and a small dish, heat the single tablespoon of butter until it’s melted.
Use a brush to spread the melted butter on a 7-8 inch cake pan (can be round or square).
Take your dark chocolate and stick of unsalted butter and chop them both into chunks
Mix the chopped dark chocolate, butter, caster sugar, and coffee together in a saucepan and heat it at medium heat while stirring regularly. Continue until the mixture is melted and well mixed.
Remove the mixture from the stove and add eggs. Stir with a whisk until it’s well mixed, then add the flour and baking powder, and whisk again until the mixture is smooth.
Pour the mixture into your cake pan, and bake it in the oven for 1.5 hours.
Remove from oven and let it stand for 15-20 minutes, before removing it to let it cool.
Now to prepare the chocolate glaze, chop the chocolate and butter and place it into a heat resistant bowl. Place the bowl into a simmering saucepan of water and mix gently until it melts. Keep mixing until its smooth then remove from the stove.
Pour the chocolate glaze over the cake carefully and evenly, use a spatula to make it even.
Let the glaze cool until it sets (around 20-30 minutes)
Enjoy!

Author Bio: Nat is a foodie and writer currently managing social media and content for the Canadian online coffee store cupcoffee.ca.

You Will Need
100g Flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
120ml double cream
Maple Syrup

And for the topping
300ml whipped cream
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
4-6 drops vanilla extract

Start off by mixing your dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, pour in the double cream and add vanilla extract. Using a hand whisk or an electric mixer, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.

Next, slowly add the dry ingredients mixture to the cream, stirring as you go. Beat the mixture until you are left with dough that you can lift out of the bowl. You then need to knead the dough for a few minutes, before cutting the dough into rectangles. These need to be quite thick, as you will need to split them in half later. Once this is done brush the rectangles with maple syrup.

Now comes the fun part. Place the rectangles onto your cooking grill and close the lid. If you can adjust the temperature of your grill, set it to a medium heat. They should take about 10-15 minutes. Sometimes one side of the grill will be hotter than the other, so turn the dough if you notice one side is cooking faster.

While this is happening, you can prepare the filling. Simply empty the whipped cream into a bowl and mix with the sugar and vanilla extract. The quantities here can be adjusted as much as you like according to personal preferences. You can even add brandy or rum.

Place the strawberries onto the grill for the last 3-5 minutes. Be careful not to overcook them – you want to avoid them becoming mushy. When everything is ready, split the shortcakes in half. Once the strawberries and biscuits have been left to cool for five minutes, assemble your shortcakes by adding the whipped cream onto the bottom half of each one, and then placing the top halves over the filling. Then all that remains is to serve your dessert and enjoy!

Author Bio: Gareth Nicholas is passionate about blogging, food and blogging about food. He is currently working with George Foreman Grills to spread great recipes around the web.

You’ll need
1 18.25 oz. box yellow cake mix
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
2 cups brown sugar
2 14.25 oz. cans fried apples, drained (Glory Foods makes some canned fried apples if you can’t find them near you)
24 paper muffin cup liners
cooking spray, as needed

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. While it’s heating up prepare the yellow cake according to package directions and set aside.
Line two sets of muffin tins with paper liners and spray lightly with cooking spray.
Mix melted butter and brown sugar together. Place a full tablespoon of butter and brown sugar mixture into each muffin tin and spread it so it covers the bottom of the paper. Put a couple apple slices in each tin then fill each cup to the top with yellow cake batter.
Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Remove pans from the oven and cool for 10 minutes.
Turn muffin tin over on to a parchment paper-lined tray or other nonstick surface.
Remove the muffin paper from the individual cupcakes while warm to avoid removing the apples accidentally.

Bio: Gina Vasselli is a writer living in Myrtle Beach who works on behalf of several Southern food, shopping and vacation companies. She loves helping people find easy and delicious recipes.

Chocolate, pistachio & nougat semi-freddo (30 mins)

This is a traditional Italian ice cream, which is the ideal solution for an easy frozen, creamy dessert.

Ingredients

-Butter
-Eggs – 4
-Golden caster sugar – 75g
-Finely chopped dark chocolate – 250g
-Double cream – 450ml
-Hard nougat or torrone – 140g (chop into 0.5cm chunks)
-Pistachios – 50g (roughly chopped)

Method

-Use a cling film and butter, and line a small loaf tin.

-Fill a pan with water and heat until it comes to a gentle simmer.

-Put the eggs and sugar in to a bowl (make sure it is heatproof), then place it over the simmering water and beat until thick, pale and the volume doubles.

-Sink the base of the bowl in cold water and keep beating until the mixture gets cool.

-Put the microwave on Low and melt the chocolate, and then fold the liquid chocolate into the egg mixture.

-Whip the cream till the peaks become soft and the nougat and pistachios to the chocolate egg mixture.

-Pour the mixture back into the loaf tin, cover and freeze until it becomes firm. (You can keep it like this for up to 2 weeks)

To serve – take out the cling film, keep in the fridge for 15 mins and slice.

Choc-caramel ice-cream tarts (40 mins)

Irresistibly delicious and looks impressive; what more can you ask of a triple-chocolate dessert?

Chocolate Pastry:

Ingredients

-Plain flour – 225g
-Butter – 150g (chopped, chilled)
-Icing sugar mixture – 2 tablespoons
-Cocoa powder – 2 tablespoons
-Milk – 3-4 tablespoons

Method

-Put the butter, flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar into a food processor and process until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

-Add milk and process until combined.

-Turn onto a lightly floured surface and smooth using a spoon.

-Shape it into a disc then cover with a plastic wrap.

-Keep in the fridge for 30 mins.

-Take it out and divide the dough into 8 pieces.

-Roll out each portion until it gets 3mm thick.

-Line a fluted tart tin (2.5cm deep), with a removable base, with the pastry and trim the excess.

-Pierce all over the bases using a fork and place in the freezer for 20 minutes.

-Preheat the oven to 200° C and bake the 8 pastry cases for 15 minutes or until they feel dry and crisp to the touch.

Tarts

Ingredients

-72g Snickers bars -4 (coarsely chopped)
-Thickened cream – 2 1/2 tablespoons
-Creamy Choc Caramel & Peters Light & Vanilla Swirl ice cream – 8 scoops
-Shaved dark chocolate (to decorate)

Method

-Add the cream and Snickers into a saucepan and mix over low heat for about 5 minutes or until all the Snickers bars melt and the mixture is smooth.

-Spoon between the tart cases and set aside until completely cool.

-Top the tarts with ice-cream and decorate using shaved chocolate.

Author Bio : Sophie Taylor is an experienced writer. She loves her work and is always concerned on something new, currently she’s writing about cots.

You can finally enjoy sweets without the guilty feeling. Remember that this treat has Omega-3’s from nuts and flavanol from the chocolates; and with tiny servings, having a few bites wouldn’t matter much to your calorie intake. More importantly, the kids will definitely enjoy watching you make this one for them. Play with shapes while plating. Just remind them to stay clear when you start melting the chocolates.

Hershey’s-Lindt Crunch

Ingredients:

2 tsp unsalted butter

1 bar of Hershey’s Dark Chocolate

2 blocks of Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate

Crushed biscuits

Crushed almonds

Crushed macadamia

Procedures:

1. Spread paper wax on a tray.
2. Place small portions of nuts and biscuits on the tray.

3. Melt the butter with the chocolates under very low heat.
4. Pour the melted mix onto the nuts.
5. Cool for 5-10 minutes.
6. Serve chilled to kids or guests.

Note: Store in the fridge, in case you made excess.

Author: Ron is a Filipino food blogger who owns FilipinoFoodsRecipes.Com and co-owns CookingLikeAPro.Net – the home of quick and easy recipes. He loves writing and blogging about foods and recipes that amuses him.

As we all know, yogurt is packed with calcium and pro-biotics making our main ingredient good for your bones and excellent for your digestion. The cocoa solids in chocolate contain a good amount of iron together with natural anti-oxidants, which lowers blood pressure, raises serotonin levels while alleviating migraines and depression. Being semi-sweet you get more of the cocoa solids while getting only half the calories compared to regular milk chocolate.

What’s more making this dessert is wonderfully easy and swift to make. This recipe is from the AICA culinary school. First off, you’ll need these simple ingredients:

- ¼ cup – Semi-sweet chocolate
- ¼ cup – Yogurt (To choose the right kind with the most health benefits, choose the yogurt packaging that says it has ”live and active cultures” and “vitamin D”.)
- 2 pcs – Egg whites
- Sugar – 2 tbsp. (or to taste)

Here’s how…

- Melt Semi-sweet Chocolates in a saucepan and let cool.
- In a bowl, combine Egg Whites and Sugar. Beat until Egg Whites form almost stiff peaks.
- Combine Chocolate and Yogurt in a separate bowl.
- Fold in Egg Whites to the Chocolate mixture and combine well.
- Pour into jar or any appropriate container and chill overnight to set.

Author : Samantha Samonte is a writer for Culinary One, a blog about culinary careers, cuisine and food in all its scrumptious glory. She spends the rest of her time guest blogging for other websites.

A Chocolate Cake is the Show Stopper

While we attend a meal, we would take sips from the glasses of cocktails, have a nibble of appetizers and hold our breathe all through this, just as we would do for a prelude to a theater piece. The chocolate dessert or cake is like the min celebrity of the show, for whom all applauds are reserved. Those who worship chocolate can say that the taste of no lamp chops, beefsteaks, fried mushrooms, lobster broths, no matter how deliciously they have been cooked wouldn’t be able to match up the sensation a chocolate cake can give.

There is No End to the Search for the Best

It is not a new thing for a chocolate connoisseur that one can never completely satisfy his or her taste buds with a chocolate cake. There can never be the best one. One would always strive towards something better, no matter how good the one he just had was. There is always a hunt on for a recipe that would be the granddaddy of all others. This recipe would not be just another method of cooking a new type of cake. It is to be a miracle to come up with an incomparable creation. People will admire it, savor it rather than just devouring it and will enjoy every bit of it. It will not only pacify your hunger but will satisfy your heart as well.

What can be a better experience than feeling your tongue touch the delicious chocolate cake and then place your teeth on them. the experience of the light and fluffy texture is just heavenly by the time it melts in your mouth. It feels as if luxury is exploding within the walls of your mouth. The sensation is unmatched.

A chocolaty dessert delicacy can be of several types. Some of them are namely, a delicious truffle cake, airy layered frost cakes, sponge like soft cakes with a juicy core. Each of these items can be a great dessert.

Excuses

The doctors are preaching a great thing these days. Chocolate has some unique nutritious abilities and can boost up the mood of depressed individuals. Thus, the chocolate lovers now have one more reason to embrace the luxury that a chocolate cake can offer. If anyone stands on the road between you and the few moments of luxury, tell him or her that you are just willing to boost your mood.

On a concluding note it can be said that a chocolate cake or dessert recipe is obviously better that the heavens for a chocolate lover. Therefore, you can anytime cut a slice of the delight called chocolate cake, and feed yourself to its deliciousness. You shall surely have the best of moods after you have had it.

Author bio:

Myke Thomas is an amazing writer and mainly known for his remarkable columns on numerous Bulk Dried Fruit relevant issues.

Ingredients:

525g currants
225g golden raisins or sultanas
300g all-purpose flour
165g glace cherries
110g mixed candied peel, chopped finely
½ level tsp. ground cinnamon
½ level tsp. mixed spice
6 large eggs well beaten
½ level tsp. ground nutmeg
300g soft brown sugar
Zest of ½ lemons
300g butter slightly softened
3 tsp. brandy and a little extra for feeding

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Low temperatures are necessary. If you insist on high temperatures, the outside will burn while the fruit, sugar and brandy in the inside will be left uncooked.

Soak the dried fruit and halved cherries in alcohol for four to eight hours before you start mixing the cake. Make sure you also remove the eggs and butter from the fridge to allow them to warm up to room temperature. Soaking the fruit is beneficial as it hydrates them.

Butter the tin and double line it. On the outer side of the tin, add a double band of brown paper that will rise two inches above the tin. Place the tin ready on a flat baking sheet; this will make it easier to remove it from the oven.

How to mix the cake

1. Take a very large bowl and cream the sugar and butter. An electric whisk is perfect for this job. Add the 6 eggs and add them spoon by spoon to the creamed sugar butter mixture. Stir in the lemon zest.
2. Fold in half of the flour and the fruit into the mixture of butter and eggs. After the first half is well mixed, add the second half. Finalize this by adding the brandy.
3. When the mixture is done, spoon it into the already prepared baking tin. Using a spoon and adding the mixture carefully will ensure there are no air pockets in the mixture.
4. Put the mixture in the oven and leave it to bake. After 2 ½ hours of baking, over the tin with parchment of greaseproof paper.

5. Your cake should be done after 4 ½ hours. To make sure it is, insert a skewer to the middle of the cake, if there is dough that is sticky at the center, then the cake is not done.
6. When it is done, remove from oven and allow it to cool for 2 to 3 hours. Once it has cooled off, prick the surface two or three times with the skewer and then pour two to three tsp. brandy. Repeat this weekly till Christmas.

The resulting traditional English fruit cake will be totally delicious!

Author : Maya is a professional cake decorater and a blogger. She loves cooking for her family and friends same as she loves writing about anything related to cooking and baking. She is currently working on a project for one of the leading wedding cake suppliers in Perth, Australia.

In the past, the family would light the log using the burnt remains from last year’s Yule log. After Christmas was over and the log was burned up, the last bit of wood would be kept in the house and stashed for the following year. It was believed that the left over burned wood would protect the home against lightning. Now instead of real logs, we have delicious cake.

Ingredients:
Cake:
2/3 cup organic flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1/4 teaspoon soda
3/4 cup sugar 3 oz chocolate 1/8 cup of water
Filling: 1/2 pint whipped cream
2 cups icing (confectioners’) sugar

Icing:
1/3 cup organic butter
2 cups icing (confectioners’) sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
2 tablespoons organic whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Cake:
Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease a 15 x 10 inch wide flat jelly roll pan, and line with greased waxed paper.
Mix soda, flour and salt in a bowl.
Beat the 4 eggs in the bowl until it is thick and light for 5 minutes.
Slowly add the sugar to the bowl, and beat again.
Melt the chocolate and water together, and add to the egg mixture.
Fold in all of the dry ingredients, and mix together carefully but profusely.
Spread ingredients into a prepped pan, and bake for about 16 minutes, until the cake springs back when pressed.
Remove from oven and immediately remove it onto a tea towel that has been sprinkled generously with icing sugar.
Remove the wax paper, and groom any crispy edges of the cake.
Begin at the narrow end, and roll up the cake and the tea towel together. Allow to cool.

Filling:
Whip the cream until thickened. Stir in vanilla and icing sugar and whip until stiff.
Unroll the cake when it is cool, spread on the top with the whip cream.
Re-roll, without the towel.
Cut a thin slice from each end of the rolled cake, and make them even.

Icing:
Make sure the butter is soft, mix all ingredients together and beat the mixture to a smooth consistency.
Use the centres of the ends you sliced off the cake to make “bumps on the log”: Use a little of the icing to affix the bump to the side of the cake – one on each side.
Cover the whole cake with the icing.
Take a small spoon and run it through the icing to resemble tree bark
Spatter with icing sugar to simulate snow and decorate with decorative holly leafs or marzipan mushrooms.
Place in refrigerator for storage.

Author : Rich Coffman is a blogger on the front range of Colorado and gets his inspiration from Indulge Bakery located down the street from his house.