Easy Chocolate Strawberry Hearts

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching, and I've been trying to figure out what I should make for dinner & dessert - now that we've got two kids and less money, we'll probably be staying at home for dinner. I admit - this is one of those Pinterest projects that I saw when I first got onto Pinterest and thought, "Wow! That is SO COOL! And so EASY! I should totally do that!"

Original post: 1FineCookie

Fast forward 2.5 years. Did I ever do that? No. Why? Because it's one of those things that seem like a great idea, but you just never get around to it because instead of make something fun and tasty in your kitchen, you sit and pin for another 15 minutes, or play Candy Crush on your phone for another hour (seriously. The time just runs through your fingers when you play that game! And btw, I heard yesterday that Candy Crush is making ONE MILLION DOLLARS A DAY from people buying extra lives etc. Wow.).

Enough of the time wasting. {update: I didn't follow the instructions in the pin above, because until today, I couldn't figure out where the pin led. All pins on Pinterest went to dead ends. So, I made up my own - even easier - method!} Yesterday, invested in a basket of strawberries. I got off my butt and melted some chocolate on the stove. I chopped the strawberries, pinned them together with toothpicks, covered them with melted chocolate, & voila - super cute treat!

Melt chocolate in a double broiler on the stove, and add in about 1/4 tsp of oil for every square of chocolate that you melt. This will help your chocolate spread more easily on the strawberries and give a better finished look. I like to use (aroma free) coconut oil for this, since coconut oil hardens when it cools down.

It's a very simple process. Wash your berries, then cut off the leaves - but don't slice the whole top off like I did. Your heart will look better if you just nip the top off. Slice the berries in half, from top to bottom. I think that they look best if you slice them on the widest side, but you can figure out what you prefer.Cut a small part off of the bottom half of 1 of the halves so that it nestles in nice & close to its neighbour.

Take a toothpick & run it through both halves of the berry. Using a paper towel, pat your strawberry & get as much water off as you can, otherwise your chocolate won't stick.

Place skewered strawberries onto parchment paper, and drizzle chocolate on with a small spoon. Be careful not to drown it in chocolate, or you'll lose the shape of your heart.

Using the ends of the toothpick, pick up the heart, gently shake off excess chocolate, then place carefully onto a new spot on the parchment paper. Place in fridge to harden. When chocolate is nearly finished hardening, carefully push toothpick out of the strawberry, and return strawberries to the fridge.

Use as a garnish on your favourite Valentine's Dessert or serve on it's own!

At the end of Christmas, I purchased a package of cakepop sticks at Target on clearance (LOVE clearance at Target - I just got our Christmas Cookie Sprinkles for next year for $0.49/bottle!!), and I decided to try out a Chocolate Strawberry Heart Pop - I followed the same process as above, except before I drizzled the strawberry with chocolate, I wedged a stick right between the two berries. Fun, no?!