Chocolate Dipped Strawberries DIY Valentines –

Why pay $30 a dozen for professionally dipped strawberries when you can make them yourself for a fraction of the cost? Handmade Valentines are always more special than boughten ones anyway. Dipping strawberries is super easy and so much fun. Your special someone is sure to be impressed with this tasty treat!

Fancy foods and baked goods can almost always be made for a much lower cost than buying them already made. I checked the prices on Chocolate Dipped Strawberries just to see what kind of money we’ve been saving. The going rate for professionally dipped strawberries is around $30 a dozen or $20 for a half dozen. My family loves Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, but a dozen strawberries won’t go very far at The House That Never Slumbers, and we are definitely not going to pay $30 for a few bites of fruit.

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We learned to make dipped strawberries many years ago after my kids begged for them in a candy store on a vacation where I think they were listed for around $5 per strawberry. I wouldn’t even let my kids buy any with their own money on that trip because that’s a ridiculous price for a strawberry and a little bit of chocolate. I told them we would buy the ingredients and make them at home. This is my answer for every situation like that. There’s no need to waste money.

We’ve used a lot of different chocolates through the years on dipped strawberries. You can use regular chocolate chips. You can use those melting wafers. You can use chocolate almond bark (not my favorite). You can get fairly decent results with any of them, but frugal as I am and always looking to use cheaper ingredients, even I have to admit the Ghirardelli chocolate gives the best results. I used to buy the big sheets of Ghirardelli chocolate at Sam’s Club, but I’ve not seen those in several years. Walmart sells the 10oz. bags of Ghiradelli melting wafers for around $4.

It only cost me $8.50 to make around 5 dozen Chocolate Dipped Strawberries.

I actually found a great deal on Ghirardelli chocolate chips ($1.50 a bag) at our local Amish discount grocery store to use on the strawberries pictured in this post. They worked just as well as the melting wafers, and it really doesn’t matter what type of chocolate you use for the drizzling with other colors because there isn’t enough of that to significantly impact the taste.

We found our strawberries for $1.49 per 16oz. container at Aldi. It took us two bags of the chocolate chips which were $1.50, plus we used the little Baker’s cup just because it was only 50 cents, also at the Amish store, and it gave us a nice cup to use for the other chocolate. The 50-cent Baker’s Premium White worked great, and we already had red melting wafers left from another project last Valentine’s Day. We made pink drizzle by mixing the two.

It only cost me $8.50 to make around 5 dozen Chocolate Dipped Strawberries. Even if I had not found the really great deals on chocolate at the Amish store, the most I would have paid for supplies is probably $15. That is far better than the $30 for only a dozen. Granted, most of my strawberries are smaller than the ones you can buy from a specialty candy shop, but the smaller strawberries are actually much easier to eat without the chocolate cracking and falling off the strawberry and melting on your clothes. I also prefer the chocolate-to-strawberry ratio that is achieved only on the smaller strawberries.

These DIY Valentines are so easy.

Rinse

Start by rinsing the strawberries really well in a strainer. Then spread them on a clean towel to dry. It helps if you can leave them to air dry for a couple of hours. The chocolate sticks much better if they’re completely dry.

Melt Chocolate

We usually melt our chocolate in a coffee mug because the deeper sides make it easier to get the whole strawberry than with a bowl. Start with 30 seconds in the microwave on high. Stir. Heat for another 30 seconds. Stir well. After that just heat in 15-second intervals, stirring in between, because if you burn the chocolate, it just clumps.

Dip

Dip the strawberries in the chocolate making sure to get them coated mostly to the stem. Then sit them in rows on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.

Cool

Move the cookie sheet to the refrigerator to cool for 10-20 minutes.

Drizzle

Once the chocolate on the strawberries is hardened, melt whatever you will be drizzling in a coffee mug. Use a spoon to scoop it into a zipper bag. The freezer ones work best because they’re not as flimsy, and the bags don’t melt from the heat of the chocolate. Close the zipper top and push all the chocolate to one corner. Use scissors to snip just a tiny bit from that corner. Practice drizzling on the wax paper to get the hang of it before you decorate any strawberries.

This is what our zipper bags look like.

My son has some interesting artistic abilities. This is why I suggested you practice first.

If you practice, these Chocolate Dipped Strawberries DIY Valentines turn out great!

Your favorite Valentine will be so impressed with your work. Don’t tell that special someone how easy they were to make. They look like they take a lot more effort than they really do.

My daughter, the one who was married in high school, actually used DIY Chocolate Dipped Strawberries as part of her Prom-posal two years ago when she asked her now-husband to her Junior Prom. I know, when did Prom-posal become a thing? She saved the clear container from the strawberries, washed it, and decorated it. The round disks with the letters P-R-O-M are just dipped Oreos.

By the way, he obviously said Yes, and they were married before the Senior Prom which was actually kind of convenient because we didn’t even have to worry about whether they were properly chaperoned the whole time.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries make fantastic, but affordable, DIY Valentines!

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. You’ll want to make these sweets for your sweetie this year. Just be sure you buy enough extras to share with your kids. They disappear quickly!

Pass along this great DIY Valentine idea. Like, share, tweet, pin, and follow The House That Never Slumbers! 

Take our special Valentine’s Day Challenge!

It’s just for fun. If you would like your sweetheart to make you these DIY Chocolate Dipped Strawberries for Valentine’s Day, share this post on Facebook, and tag your significant other. Let us know if your Valentine gets the not-so-subtle hint and actually makes them for you. If this challenge works, you don’t even need a prize from us because you already have the prize of a Super Devoted Honey.

Wishing you a Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

 

 

 

 

Find out more about my thoughts on Valentine’s Day and relationships here: