Chocolate Filled Strawberries

One of my wife's favorite sweets is chocolate covered strawberries. In fact I've noticed that pretty much anything with chocolate in the name has a good chance of being enjoyed by women. I wonder if I would have introduced myself to my wife when we first met as Matt "Chocolate" Barrett if I wouldn't have had to work so hard to woo her. Hmmm...

Anyway, during the holiday season I came up with a great idea to improve on the chocolate covered strawberry idea. I call it Chocolate Filled Strawberries. (Original isn't it?)

Here's what I did.

Take a normal strawberry. It has to be one of decent size though. Think golf ball size.










Then get one of those melon ballers and scoop out the stem and insides of the berry. You'll need a small melon baller to do it right. Set the stem aside, you'll need it later for garnish.










It may take a second or third scoop, depending on the size of the berry. Your ultimate goal is to hollow the berry out and make a nice cavity to fill with chocolate.











Use a small teaspoon to fill with melted chocolate.











Once filled, your berry should look like this.









Now, pull a couple of leaves from the stem and press into the chocolate as garnish and dust with powdered sugar. I know my powdered sugar looks a little heavier than a dusting, but what the picture doesn't show is my kids waiting to open their one present on Christmas Eve and I got in a hurry.










Refrigerate until the chocolate hardens.

I was amazed at how different the taste experience was from a chocolate covered strawberry. Normally, you crunch through the hard chocolate and finally get the berry. This way you first taste the berry, then the chocolate starts melting in your mouth. Plus the bright red berry is much prettier than plain brown chocolate.