shishkaberries, melissa and karin style.

Last night Melissa and I went to a Mariner's game and after all these years, I finally broke down and bought a stick of chocolate-covered strawberries, otherwise known as a Shishkaberry. I've been wanting to try them for a while (read: years), and when I took my first bite I was woefully disappointed.

Cut to this afternoon, when Melissa and I decided to make our own chocolate covered strawberries! (Actually, we had already decided to make our own before I bought the ones yesterday, but if I leave that out the story flows better.)

We had a bit of difficulty getting started -- the instructions we looked at said you can either use a double boiler or just melt the chocolate in the microwave. However, the most *important* thing about melting the chocolate in the microwave is to melt it on half power. I'll repeat that: if you melt your chocolate chips in the microwave, make sure you set the power to 50%. Otherwise you risk overcooking the chocolate and it doesn't ever smooth out, you'll never get to dip your strawberries in it, and you'll be sad. And I don't want you to be sad.

However, we learned our lesson*, and persevered. I suppose it also helps that I have an abundance of chocolate in my house.

Here's the outcome:



The drizzled chocolate was achieved by piping the leftover melted chocolate out of folded wax paper. Originally, we tried to just drizzle it with a fork, but that totally didn't work, so let me know if you know of a better way.

We're waiting for the chocolate to harden, so fingers crossed they'll taste better than those ones on a stick.

*The other lesson I learned today is that "shiskaberry" (only one "h") is a variety of cannibis.