Chocolate Dipped Strawberry......Rice Krispie Treats

I stopped eating strawberries in high school when I read something about mold growing around the seeds. I will however eat strawberry flavored food and even strawberry jelly, but never jam, its too similar to strawberries, with chunks and seeds. Yuck! ("Jam tomorrow jam yesterday but never ever jam today" - Carol Channing, sorry I had too.) I wanted to come up with an alternative to chocolate dipped strawberries for Valentine's Day, and this is what I came up with at 12am, Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats shaped like strawberries then dipped in chocolate.
I found a few different options for making Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats: strawberry marshmallows, Jello, fruit puree, or jelly. I have tried using all Jello before, and it's pretty gross. I also have tried fruit puree and so far it has been the best, but it's hard to find and expensive. (Whole Foods carries it for around $10) This time I used a combination of jelly plus a little Jello, for a stronger strawberry flavor. Luckily, for the sake of my sanity, they turned out just as I had imagined, although I would use the strawberry puree recipe next time.(I will put the recipe at the bottom of this post.) I love them ♥

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats
makes 14 strawberries

20 large marshmallows
3 cups Rice Krispie cereal
2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup strawberry jelly
2 tsp strawberry Jello
red food coloring
14 green gum drops
dipping chocolate (recipe follows)
ice cube tray

Spray ice cube tray with non stick spray.
In a large pan melt butter, marshmallows, jelly and Jello over low heat. Stirring until melted.
Remove from heat, stir in a few drops of red food coloring. Add the Rice Krispie cereal. Stir until well coated.

Drop spoonfuls of cereal into greased ice cube trays, pressing firmly. Overfill "cups" making the tops rounded.

The stems. Using only the green gum drops, softly flatten with a spatula or dough scraper to about the size of a nickle. (Be careful not to smash too much, it will cause the gumdrop to stick to the work surface.) Using a sharp knife, cut out small pie shaped piece. Rotate to the opposite side of the gum drop and make another pie shape cut, continue around the gum drop.

Using a butter knife carefully remove the Rice Krispie Treats from the ice cube tray. Finish shaping with your hands, rounding the edges.

Now it's time for dipping! After struggling with tempering in the past, I decided to try a new "cheaters" way of covering things in chocolate. It may be cheating but it worked great.

Dipping Chocolate

8 oz chocolate
2 Tbs shortening

Place the chocolate and shortening in a microwave safe bowl, heat in 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until smooth.

Adding the final touch, the stem. Press the gum drop stem to the top of the strawberry, the stickiness of the gum drop and the Rice Krispie Treat will keep it attached.

Too cute, and the perfect Valentine's treat for a sugartarian.

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I made this recipe only once a long time ago, and don't remember what I changed if anything, so I can't guarantee the results :)

Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats
adapted from Thomas Keller

7 oz of marshmallows
1.5 oz butter
3.5 oz Rice Krispie cereal
1.25 oz strawberry puree
4 drops red food coloring

In a large pan melt butter, marshmallows, and strawberry puree over low heat. Stirring until melted.
Remove from heat. Add the Rice Krispie cereal. Stir until well coated.