By: Amyna Denton age 13
You guys know that chocolate-covered fruit that you can have delivered to someone for a special occasion? Well, we can not get those in our area in rural Western NC, so we decided to make our own! It was actually my aunt Kat’s bright idea. She called and asked if my sister and I could make chocolate-covered fruit and pretzels for my Gramma Lee for Valentine’s Day. We said that we would love to do that. She sent us white and milk chocolate, sprinkles, and a chocolate “melter.” My sister and I got the pineapples, strawberries, bananas, pretzels, dipping sticks, and parchment paper.
The first thing we did was start melting the chocolate. We melted the chocolate in the tiny chocolate melter, but that was kind of time consuming, so we also used the microwave (ten seconds on and ten seconds off). A little tip on melting chocolate, you need to add some kind of oil. We chose coconut oil, which is yummy. My aunt Kelly helped cut all the pineapples and strawberries into heart shapes for Valentine’s Day. The fruit must be pretty dry, so we placed it all on kitchen towels. We stuck some of the fruit on forks and some on skewers. The pretzel rods don’t need any prep.
Then it was time to cover the fruit in the chocolate! We took one of the skewers that had fruit on it and gently placed it in the chocolate. We took the fruit out and placed it on the parchment paper so it wouldn’t make a mess everywhere. If you want to drizzle chocolate or put sprinkles on the fruit, make sure the chocolate on is still melted. For the pretzels, we found it easier to scoop some chocolate out and coat the pretzels, rather than dip them.
Once all the fruit and pretzels were on the parchment paper all nice and decorated, we placed them in the fridge so that the chocolate didn’t melt (and so they didn’t get eaten them right away). It was very fun and easy to make these homemade fruit arrangements. They also taste really good. I am glad that our aunts Kelly and Kat taught and showed us how to make them!