These might look like chocolate eggs, but in actual fact they are chocolate covered grapes! You know me, I like a healthy snack, and although the coatings of these might not be all that great for you, the centre certainly is!
I had a bit of a brainwave when I heard about people freezing grapes and eating them as icy snacks. I tried them and they were great! So I thought I would try to devise a recipe that turned them into mini chocolate ice lollys (without the stick). I had grape expectations for this experiment (grape, hah, see what I did there!?)
In actual fact I think these were much nicer when they had just been refrigerated rather than frozen. To get the best flavour you have to chew them quite quickly, rather than suck them. As you can imagine this is pretty difficult when they are frozen!
I started off the experiment by sending Chris to the shops to get me a bunch of grapes, and a packet of dark chocolate. Whilst that was being taken care of, I raided the cupboards to see what I had that would work as a coating.
I re-emerged with the following ingredients
- Hundreds and Thousands
- Sesame Seeds (my healthy option)
- Cocoa Powder
- Vanilla Sugar
- Cinnamon
The hundreds and thousands and the sesame seeds were ready to roll, but I mixed the cocoa powder, cinnamon and vanilla sugar together. I'm not quite sure how much I used of each, it was mostly cocoa powder, a bit less sugar, and then a fair sprinkling of cinnamon.
Then I found some little dishes to put each topping in. A small deep bowl is preferable to a large shallow one. I also got out a large piece of baking foil to lay my finished grapes on.
Next I got on with melting my chocolate. The usual way of boiling a pan of water and sitting a pyrex dish on top, I popped in my broken chocolate and stirred until completely melted.
Now for the fun bit! I took my washed grapes, one by one, dipped them completely in the melted chocolate, then put them straight into my coating dish. I used a spoon to pour the coating onto the top. Then I rolled it around a bit until I was sure it was covered. You want the toppings to completely cover the chocolate, otherwise the melted chocolate will just stick to the bottom of the dish and make a mess. The cocoa powder one was easiest, I just had to shake the dish and the grape would roll around on its own.
I found it best to leave them in the dish to set for a moment, so I had a little production line going on where I would do one in each coat then remove it when I got back to the first one again. At this point I carefully removed the coated grape from the dish and placed it on my tin foil, and popped them in the fridge to cool for a little while.
I have to admit, these were a bit strange to get used to, but after I'd had a few ... yum! Chris and I devoured all of these during one episode of Game Of Thrones.
My favourites were the hundreds and thousands, weirdly they tasted a lot like a toffee apple! I loved the cinnamon kick in the cocoa ones, but you definitely had to chew them, if you sucked it you would just end up with a mouth full of powder. And the sesame seed ones are great too, they will be a perfect healthy treat. They say dark chocolate is good for you right!?
Ok, they were a little bit fiddley to make, but well worth it!
I think these would be really fun at a party. I would like to see peoples expressions as they eat them and don't get what they are expecting! A good way to trick children into eating fruit also, no? Although I never understand children who don't like fruit, particularly grapes, I loved them as a child!
I'm trying to think of some more topping ideas now. Can you think of any that would be good?
Laura xXx
