Chocolate Covered Fruit as Homemade Christmas Gift

Ingredients:

Dark chocolate
Washed and dried cherries and strawberries, preferably with stalks still attached
Dried dates and apricots
Anything else you want to dip

Method:

Prepare some trays with some wax paper
Place a small glass or metal baking bowl over a small sauce pan with about two inches of water in it. The water shouldn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.
Place on a medium heat and turn down a little when the water begins to steam
Fill the bowl with broken pieces of chocolate and cover with a small plate
Check regularly and when the chocolate begins to melt, start to periodically press the pieces down into the melted chocolate
When most of the chocolate has melted begin dipping your fruit
Gently shake the fruit and let as much of the excess chocolate fall off
Place carefully on the wax paper
When the chocolate has hardened carefully remove the fruit into your pre-prepared gift box

The gift box:

Take an old gift box, Christmas card box, etc. (should be the kind with a lid) and wrap the bottom and top separately, two different Christmas wrappings make a nice contrast
Line the inside of the box with gift wrap or wax paper
Save ribbon during the year and iron suitable lengths of it for tying bows on the box(es)

Cleaning up:

Don’t through out the wax paper and wash the bowl just yet!
Use a steak knife to shave the chocolate off the paper and bowl to make chocolate shavings
Use on top of Irish coffees, desserts, hot chocolate, etc.

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