By Elizabeth Brady

So, naturally, this thought popped into my mind: “How much of my barbeque can I dip in Velata chocolate?”

Turns out the answer is: pretty much all of it!

1. Hot dog

source

My brain just compartmentalized this one. “Oh, there’s Velata, mmm. And oh, there’s a hot dog!” A mouth full of chocolate just starts an entrée off nicely. Although I must say, I did feel like Miss Piggy dunking a whole hot dog into the suddenly-too-small Velata warmer dish.

2. Fried Chicken

You guys… chicken and chocolate; need I say more? Not only does it have a ring to it, now it has a sweet smoothness, too! Salty and sweet makes me weak in the knees. Juicy white chicken bathed in soft brown milk chocolate? I think yes!

3. Potato Wedges

The chocolate seeped right into the porous potato, and surprisingly fit right in — good texture and flavor. I can’t believe I’m saying this about potatoes and chocolate…but don’t knock it ‘til you try it!

4. Chips

This one stole the show! I had to pop about seven into my mouth to make sure the next one was as good as the last one, and I was right every time! It takes a steady hand to dip the chip perfectly so as to maintain of the integrity of the salty chip flavor whilst encouraging the sometimes shy and delicate milk chocolate to stand proud. Well done, you two. This is gonna be big, I can feel it. Chocolate chips! 

5. Potato Salad

source

This one was absolutely disgusting, but you know, I’m willing to blame the potato salad.

6. Watermelon

I know what you’re thinking: “How on Earth will that work?” Well, let me tell you, it was delicious! The warm milk chocolate melted into the light flavor of the ripe and moist watermelon like they were made for each other. I had my reservations at first, but I ended up dipping and re-dipping watermelon chunks!

7. Jell-o

This one was a little tricky to pull off; the jello trembled when I held her up over the chocolate bath. (I’ll give you a secret: Jell-o jigglers are your best bet!) She pulled through though; the dark chocolate actually played nice with the raspberry Jell-o, but no surprise there. Milk chocolate got jealous and tried a little too hard…the double sweetness of Jell-o and milk chocolate was just a little over the top. Victory for dark chocolate!

When it was all said and done, I ended up with a few rules of thumb for next time:

1. Get your own Velata: Seriously, you’ll want a separate Velata dish per person. Or designate a dish for each food. Because who wants potato salad in their jello?

2. Try everything: Who knew watermelon was chocolatable?

3. Have a mix of sweet and savory: My taste buds got quite the whirlwind, and that’s a positive. After a few bites of chocolate chicken, I was ready for a dip of watermelon. Each switch from salty to sweet was refreshing. If you don’t want to exhaust your tasters or your interest, mix it up!

4. Have multiple varieties of Velata on hand: I’ve been loving dark chocolate lately, so I almost only warmed dark, but everything turned 

 out better with milk (except the jello)! Who knows what sort of magic would have come to pass if white chocolate were on the table…

5. Don’t Velata alone: Half the fun is watching the other guy eat chocolate chicken!