12 Things You Never Thought To Dip In Chocolate

At some point over the last decade or so, the Fondue Night-themed party stopped being cool, and started to get the reputation of being "dated." Odd, seeing as there's almost nothing as delicious-sounding as a piece of warm, crusty bread or an extra juicy piece of fruit into a warm pot of melted chocolate. However, the act of it seems to have lost its luster. Perhaps this lack of interest in the fondue-nomenon  has to do with the simplicity of it; we stopped being creative with what we were dipping, so we lost interest all together. Rather than be predictable, we need to think outside of the fondue pot and ask ourselves one question: what haven't we dipped into chocolate that we probably should?   

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Chocolate is an interesting dip because it can be relatively mild in flavor; it intensifies the flavors of whatever you're dipping into it, similar to the way salt works. For this particular experiment, I used both milk and dark chocolate — I wanted to see if there were any flavor differences between the two. I also wanted to try dipping more interesting foods — I wanted to bring some culinary curveballs to the table. Rather than the chunk of cheese, I tried salty, crispy French fries; instead of strawberries I tried celery sticks. If you're looking for a way to shake things up, try one or all of these dippable snacks at your next party. Who knows, cheese crackers with chocolate fondue might just be the signature dish you've been looking for!

Dipping Tip: As you scan the shelves looking for the perfect snacks to dip into your chocolate, keep this in mind: you're dipping into a liquid. Therefore, what you dip into that liquid needs to be relatively dry, so your chocolate doesn't slide off the surface. Think pickles sound great dipped in chocolate? They do, until you dip them and realize that the effort it takes to actually get some chocolate onto that slippery, briny pickle isn't worth the end result.

Originally published on August 18, 2014

Additional reporting done by The Daily Meal's Recipe Editor