My boys are connoisseurs of fine value-added produce hacks, but most of them I bring home seem to focus on making vegetables more fun for kids.
With that in mind, they were especially excited to try something that involved chocolate and fruit. I picked up a Pompeii Produce Enhancer Fruit Freeze Chocolate Dip Kit at a tradeshow recently, and thought it looked like a fun activity for kids.
Who doesn’t like chocolate covered strawberries, and I hear chocolate covered bananas are particularly popular with Arrested Development fans. “There’s always money in the banana stand,” right?
This kit includes popsicle sticks and a pouch of chocolate dip. It reminds me a little Fun Dip, where you get a pouch of sugar with a sugar stick that you dip back in the pouch. Fruit Freeze is a bit healthier, though.
You take your choice of fruit, place it on a stick and freeze it for at least an hour. I used bananas, strawberries and a particularly fantastic and ripe bartlett pear I had in my kitchen.
We placed the chocolate pouch in hot water for about two minutes, although the recipe suggests three to four. I perhaps should have read that part before I had my kids involved, because they were too impatient to wait longer.
Once it was sufficiently melty, we dipped. And it was super fun! I was kind of surprised at how much fun my kids were having. Sometimes they play along with me, but this was actual, genuine surprise at watching the chocolate harden instantly.
Uli, my 3-year-old, ate his banana before we could film the fruit trial, and said it was “great!” Ike, who doesn’t like frozen bananas, loved the chocolate covered strawberry, and the pear. The pear was probably my favorite.
The only drawback? Well, imagine your kids with a pouch of melted chocolate. You can see where this is going.
Once the fruit was gone, fingers sufficed.