Boo Berries

Pinstrosity got to spend a lovely day on Tuesday with the ladies at Aunt Judy's Attic in Silver City, NM, where we got to teach a class all about Pinterest. It was a lot of fun to meet the women there and to talk about how Pinterest could help each of them, how to work Pinterest, and even helped a lady get set up with her own account. All in all, it was really a fun way to spend a day. 

Occasionally as we'd show them something really fun and they'd go "Ooohhhh!!" kinda like this:

The Original Pin

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Strawberry-Ghosts

Okay, I know these are supposed to be scared, but to me it looks like they could be "oohing" or surprised too. Taste of Home put together a great recipe with instructions to make these Boo Berries. 

Lindsay found the pin, made the boo berries, then sent her photo to us and said, " I think these people had tools or tiny fingers or something! Mine turned out... Well...Special."

The Pinstrosity

Emilee and I are sitting here together and Emilee said, "Hey! They look like the Pac Man ghosts! Tell her she could throw a Pac Man party and use these!" So...these ghosts don't look quite like the picture...but I bet they still tasted delicious. Let's take a look at what can be done next time to get the look of the original pin. 

• First off...I do like the shape of Lindsay's ghosts. She dipped the strawberries and then placed them strawberry side down, rather than chocolate side down. I can see pros and cons to each method. Lindsay's method gives more of a ghost shape to the creations, but it was probably a little more messy, and it might make it harder for people to pick up off a tray. The Taste of Home method doesn't really have the quintessential ghost shape, but the greens on the end make a nice little hand hold for dipping the strawberries and for people to pick off the tray. Also, the melted chocolate will form a little pool under the strawberry, making a handy little flat area to keep the strawberry sitting upright. 
• It looks like Lindsay's chocolate could have used a little bit more shortening in the mix. The directions on Taste of Home do suggest adding some shortening to thin and smooth out the chocolate a little bit, and that will help to reduce clumps and funny spots. When heating your chocolate, add teaspoon of shortening and mix it in. You can add more shortening than that if you need, but do so in tsp. increments, heating and mixing between each addition. 
• It looks like Lindsay used sprinkles as the face, which would be really hard to handle and place. Sprinkles are tiny. Props to her for getting as good of faces as she did...sprinkles and I have a love hate relationship and I don't know that I could have done that well with sprinkles. Taste of Home used  mini chocolate chips as the eyes, placing them on the strawberry before the chocolate has cooled and set completely. For the mouth, wait until the white chocolate has cooled and set up before you melt the next set of chocolate. The original site suggests using a toothpick to draw on the mouth. I've tried that before...and it's not all that easy. I've seen it done, but it'll take some practice (or at least I need practice with it...I know there are those of you out there who got it down on your first try). I spoon a little bit in a plastic baggy (making sure that there's enough shortening in the chocolate to make it runny enough) and then I cut just the very very tip off to make a tiny whole so I can squeeze the chocolate out. I find I can get better control that way when I'm drawing designs with chocolate. 

But...no matter how these boo berries turn out as far as looks go, I'm pretty sure they will taste just fine. That's one of the great things about this "recipe"...unless you get bad berries or something weird get added to the chocolate, it's bound to taste fantastic.