Hyper-dried Strawberries Infused With Chocolate

What are chocolate infused strawberries?

Removing all the water from strawberries leaves a scafold of crunchy strawberry. Melted white chocolate is then soaked into the space created from removing the water.

I had been given these as a gift by my sister about a year ago, since trying these I have wondered how do they do it? Well, after a year and a lot of failed yet delicious attempts I finally fully infused white chocolate into a strawberry.

Supplies

Freeze dried Strawberries

Vacuum Chamber

Pressure Chamber

Silicone heating pad

Chocolate

Stainless pot

Hole drill

Pvc tubing

Step 1: Strawberries

Not all strawberries are good for infusing. I started with supermarket freeze dried berries. Some have sugar added to them which blocks the chocolate from infusing and others were not stable enough to infuse.

I quickly moved on from buying pre- dried berries to fresh berries.

I found a local candy maker that had a freeze dryer and paid to have these fresh berries hyper-dried

Freeze drying is the best way to preserve the shape of the strawberries.

The result was greatly better strawberries. Fluffy, crispy, and much more flavor.

Later I found fresh picked and ultra ripe strawberries are the best to infuse

Step 2: Submerge the Berries

If youre going to be making more than 1 infused strawberry you will need a mesh to keep them submerged in the chocolate.

I used a circle cooling rack and some hardware from the big box store.

Step 3: Melting

Melting your chocolate is going to be the easiest step. You can use a double boiler, a microwave on low, or a wax warmer. Either way you want to melt your chocolate. I like to add some extra oil to thin out the chocolate this is optional but i highly recommend it.

Step 4: Vacuum Chamber

I used a vacuum chamber wrapped in a silicone heating pad to submerge and soak the dried strawberries.

I drilled a hole from the heated chocolate pot to the vacuum chamber. I used PVC fittings to connect the 2 chambers.

Remove all the air from the chamber with the strawberries then allow the melted chocolate to fully cover the berries.

Below is a video of the full set-up

Step 5: Final Result

Here are the results some only half infused, others got crushed or only oil infused.

These are alot of effort to make, but they are unlike any treat youve had before. I want to start trying other fruits like peach. Let me know if you try making these

I dont think they sell these in stores but you can find them online like the ones i got as a gift from my sister.

here is the link

cocoablossom.com