Valentine's day special: Chocolate dipped strawberries and cream on devil's food cake


Don't we all love strawberries with cream? We have all had this delicious, sexy and simple dish innumerable times in our life whether as desserts or snacks… And many a time we also have dipped these "wonder" berries in melted chocolate…"mmmmm!!!" and mere thought just makes you hungry for it…

On this valentine's day, I thought, "why not mix them together"??? I had a box full of fresh juicy succulent strawberries and some fresh cream. I also had a devil's food chocolate cake batter (ready to mix and bake). 

All I needed was some chocolates.

Now, I am not a huge fan of white chocolates but the idea of strawberries dipped in white chocolate was too alluring not to try, so I got myself a bar of Sainsbury's delicious dark chocolate and white chocolate each. 
mmmm… smooth richness
And hence, I decided, I will make a chocolate cake topped with fresh cream and chocolate dipped strawberries…

For the chocolate dipped strawberries I used:
50g of Sainsbury's dark chocolate
50g of Sainsbury's white chocolate
6 large Strawberries 

For the cake the main ingredients were:
1 large egg
100 ml water
30 ml oil
1/2 of Betty crocker's devil's food cake mix
(you can use the full pack with all the required ingredients as par the instructions for a big chunky cake :D)

Step 1: 
I started with my cake mix. All the ingredients listed must be mixed together in a bowl and whisked till the batter is consistent. If you would like to go all the way to town with this you can also make it from scratch, use your own cake recipe for different flavours, or use substitutes if you are celiac or vegan.

Mix the batter till it is consistent
I also put some white bailey's in it for some extra zang :)!!!
Bailey's goodness
Step 2:
Preheat the oven to 180 degree C and prepare a tin for the cake. Transfer the batter into the greased tin and bake for 15 mins.
Meanwhile you can prepare the cream and strawberries.

Step 3:
For the cream I used a cup of double fresh cream; I also added some pink food colouring just for fun ;)
Fresh cream and colouring
Whisk the double cream and the pink food colouring together till the cream is fluffy,
Oooh fluffy…
and leave it aside. 

Step 4:
Take 50g of each kinds of chocolate bars and melt them in microwave for 1 minute. Stir with a spoon and see if they have melted well, they should stir easily if they have melted to the required consistency.

Melted chocolate

Step 5:
Now dip the washed strawberries one by one in the chocolates in the patterns or colours you want. For tutorials on different lovely patterns check out this amazing video by Tatyana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHQ-ORHsJ1k 


 Different styles I used

I mixed the two chocolates (on the strawberry) to give marble design, or made stripes, and even coated one with crushed walnuts. The chocolate sets almost immediately so you have to be quick or else coating the strawberries can get difficult as I experienced.

Step 6:
Decor time!!!

Once the cake is all set and cooled, put it out on a plate.
Looks all done!
 Cut three strawberries into thin slices...
These strawberries were fairly easy to cut as they were firm.
Pour the pink whipped cream all over the cake. And decorate the outer edge of the cake with strawberry slices.
Pink sun!
Now half the chocolate covered strawberries and top the cake with them is your own style...
They look beautiful...
And VOILA!!!

Your valentine's day special chocolate dipped strawberries with cream on chocolate cake (damn that's a mouthful) is ready to gorge on :D


Have a great time making one yourself :)



Chaoc

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