Chocolate Coconut Rum Covered Strawberries

Chocolate is a MUST on valentines day! And who doesn't love chocolate covered strawberries?
This dessert combines the three flavors (chocolate, coconut, and strawberries) into little bite sized pieces that can be made in bulk and given to all your valentines this year or just your one sweetheart :)

Ingredients:
- Malibu Coconut Rum (1 shot) It's always good to have extra incase you get frusterated :)
- Strawberries (~5 large ones) The bigger the easier to work with, but make sure they are all about the same size
- Chocolate Chips (1/2 cup) Nestle always works best for me
- Shredded Coconut (1/4 cup) You can toast the coconut in the oven to add a little color when decorating your strawberries

Recipe yields about 5 large berries

Step 1: Clean and Cut

A quick rinse of your strawberries should do the trick. Then pat them dry with a cloth or paper towel.
This is important to get any pesticides off of your strawberries. You can also remove any dead or brownish leaves from the top of your berries.

At this time, you will also want to cut a small hole in your strawberries so that you can carefully pour the liquor into the berries. You will want to reseal the hole in the berries when you are done, so keep that in mind when you are cutting out a small clean hole.
To cut the hole in the strawberries:
- Take one cleaned berry and with a sharp small knife cut a square near the tip of the strawberry. You will want the hole to go deep enough into the berry so that when you remove the area cut, you will see an empty cavity in the strawberry. If you have a seringe of some sort, this may be VERY helpful here. A straw can also be very helpful as well to remove a bit of the inside of the strawberry, that way there is a larger cavity inside of the berry.
- You can then pour the liquor into the cavity in the berry and then cap it up with the bit of berry that was removed. You just want to add enough liquor so that the berry has a hint of the liquor. Using a straw I sucked up just a bit of the liquor and then pipetted it into the hole that I cut for the strawberries, this worked pretty well!

Step 2: Dip and Dry

Once you have filled the strawberries, you can then carefully melt and dip the berries in the chocolate.

When melting chocolate chips, I find it easiest to put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds at a time. After each 30 second increment, I check on the chips so that they do not burn (the smell of dissapointment...). Make sure you use a microwave safe bowl, it should on the bottom of the bowl if it is microwave safe.

After the chocolate chips are melted, you can carefully hold the stawberry by the stem and dip them into the melted chocoalte.

Place the dipped strawberries on a sheet of wax paper while they dry at room temperature. You can toast the coconut by putting the coconut on a greased cookie sheet and bake them at 350 until they are light brown. Sprinkle the toasted coconut flakes on the dipped strawberries before they dry. You can also drizzle some white chocolate on the berries instead for a professional look.

Oopps.... When dipping your strawberries in the chocolate, make sure that they are very dry. If they are not perfectly dry, the chocolate will clump up and not look very delicious...

Enjoy!!!