Picture from our wedding photographer

Who doesn’t like the strawberries dipped in chocolate from the Christmas market!

We wanted a light dessert for our wedding lunch as we knew a massive dinner was coming in the evening, but I still wanted some wow factor and fruits and chocolate! A chocolate fondue would not have been very practical for 20 guests, especially if I wanted to keep my dress sparkly white!

I googled my idea and found some nice examples of the strawberry tower I had in mind. I bought a cylindrical polystyrene pyramid, a silver piece of fabric to hide the polystyrene, a packet of toothpick, some big strawberries, and white and dark chocolate bars. Try to buy strawberries roughly the same size, and loads of it! I bought them the day before to make sure they were as fresh as possible. Wash and pat them dry, make sure they are completely dry before dipping them into the melted chocolate.

Tip: Practice at least once before on a few strawberries. The tempering of the chocolate is not that easy at home, the mounting of the fruits is also tricky, and decorating the bride and groom strawberry is also quite hard. Make sure you’re happy with all this so you don’t ruin your beautiful strawberries on the day.

Tempering chocolate can be done at home, you just need to be patient. I bought belgian dark chocolate and white chocolate and followed the middle ground method to temper them. I have a normal cooking thermometer and it worked fine. Once you’ve achieved tempering temperature for each chocolate, make sure the chocolate cools down before dipping the strawberries in. Better loosing some shininess than cooking your fruits.

Have baking sheets ready, along with your toothpicks. Hold the strawberry firmly by the leaves and dip it in the chocolate of your choice, shake the strawberry to remove the extra chocolate, insert the toothpick through the tip of the strawberry and lie the fruit on its leaves, upside down, for the chocolate to set. The set chocolate will seal the toothpick to the strawberry.

For the bride and groom strawberries, choose the two best strawberries you have. Dip the fruits in the chocolate by first coasting one side, then the other one trying to create a triangular cleavage with the chocolate. These 2 strawberries should be perfect looking from all sides, so hold them down until most of the extra chocolate has dripped off and then add the toothpick. A spare piece of polystyrene could really help here to insert the toothpick while the chocolate sets. I didn’t have one so I just kept holding it until the chocolate was set. Wait for the chocolate to set completely to start drawing the pearls with a toothpick, the bow-tie and the buttons on the jacket. When the bow-tie is set, add the dot.

Secure the silver fabric around the pyramid while the chocolate sets. Create the pyramid starting by the bottom row and always try to pack the strawberries as much as you can. Add the bride and groom on top and store in a cool place, but I would not recommend to store it in the fridge otherwise the strawberries will shrink and the chocolate will break easily.