Big plans... Sweet Love!

So a few weeks ago, it was my friend Steven's birthday. Our mutual friend Kirsten and I had him over for brunch and cake. In addition to the vegan chocolate cake (the same one as in my blog last week), I made white chocolate-filled, dark chocolate-dipped strawberries. I call this Sweet Love. (Cute, isn't it?)

To do this, I made a vegan white chocolate ganache (cocoa butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and soy milk... I'll dink around with it and post a recipe one of these days) and squirted it into the strawberries, then dunked them into melted dark chocolate.

When buying a food injector, keep in mind what you will be using it for. The ones that are designed primarily for injecting marinades into meat might have multiple holes at the end. This would work fine if you were injecting tofu, veggies, or seitan, but for a smaller item like a strawberry, you want to find one that just has a hole at the end like a regular syringe. (Otherwise, you might find a mess on your hands, literally.)

Make the ganache. This time around, I'll be making regular white chocolate ganache with dairy. You heat heavy cream and pour it over chopped white chocolate, then stir until it's melted. If it doesn't cooperate, you can heat it gently in the microwave or put the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Once it's smooth, spoon it into your injector. You will probably need less than you imagine.

Use a skewer to poke holes in the tips of the strawberries, then put in the syringe and squirt out the ganache. Leave the strawberries to set as much as possible while you fill the rest. Once all of the are filled, melt the dark chocolate. If you know how to temper it, you can do so to make it prettier. Then, just dunk the berries as you usually would. Because the white chocolate ganache has set somewhat, it won't run out of the hole.

Troubleshooting: If you don't have an injector, you can still make this. You'll just wind up with a lot more white chocolate filling, and the berries will be booby-trapped! Just core the strawberries (cut off the tops and remove the white part from the middle) and fill them with melted white chocolate. Don't use ganache here unless you have a long time to let them set. Once the white chocolate has set, dip the filled berries into dark chocolate. You might want to lower them into the chocolate with a spoon or a fork so the white chocolate doesn't fall out.