FAIL: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

As I mentioned before, I am not much of a fruit person.  For some odd reason I like veggies better than fruit.  It isn't because they are sweet, because everything else sweet I adore, but fruit for some reason is OK to me, but nothing I crave. 

Except berries. 

Oh how I love berries!  Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries... yum yum yum!

Every so often there is a guy selling strawberries on a street corner on my way home.  I have never stopped and bought any because I am always longing to be in my house instead of in my car.  Today, however, we were both in the car together driving home from the beach, relaxed and unconcerned about time schedules.  So we decided to get some strawberries.



Paulo used to hate strawberries.  I guess in Brazil they are really sour.  Both my husband and my sister-in-law declined strawberries here in America when offered but finally gave into the pressure and quickly changed their tune to, "Oh, they taste so good, so sweet!"  (I think in Brazil they pick them early so when they export them they will be sweet.  Good for us, but bad for the Brazilians who have to eat the sour strawberries.)  So now we are able to enjoy this treat together.  And what a better way to eat strawberries than turn them into chocolate covered strawberries?

I looked up the recipe online.  Hmm... I needed chocolate chips.  I don't have any chocolate chips.  So that wouldn't work... But wait!  I thought.  I have cocoa powder!

Yes, you heard me correctly, cocoa powder.  (All of you real cooks out there are moaning, I know.  But remember -- my blog is called A Clove of Garlic, A Pinch of Salt  NOT  A Spoon of Sugar, A Dash of Baking Powder.)

So cocoa powder it was.  I had just been looking at a recipe the other day that used butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and some other stuff, so I figured I would just see what I could whip up.  It went something like this:

(That would be mixing my ingredients, then realizing it was way too bitter so adding more sugar, and then melting it all together.)

But then I faced another problem:  I needed more sweetness but the more sugar I put in the more grainy it got.  And then I got my second great idea:

That's right, honey. 

Think about it for a moment: it is sweet AND it is already ready smooth, not grainy.  Really, I thought this move was quite brilliant.  I added a bit, stirred, and tasted.  You know what?  It didn't taste that bad!  SCORE!

Except, this is what I got:

I don't know about you, but really, I don't want to eat that.  I know what some of you are going to say, though.  Yes, maybe it doesn't matter what it looks like as long as it tastes good. 

Well, it didn't taste good. 

It tasted so bad that I spit it out in under a second and quickly jammed a clean strawberry into my mouth to take away the awful, awful taste.  Luckily I was smart enough to only coat three with chocolate before I tasted them again.  (That taste test from the pot must have been the one good spot!)

So, you live and you learn.  Now I know to trust the experts and know if there is no recipe that says make chocolate covered strawberries with cocoa powder, there is probably a reason why. 

At least I have some good, fresh strawberries waiting for me.  And you know what?  Plain sounds just fine.