Chocolate Fruit Dip

Fruit and chocolate are one of those magical combinations where both components are delicious on their own, but together they form one tempting, sweet, craveable mash-up of flavors. Almost any fruit tastes great with chocolate: tart berries, sweet bananas, cool melon, take your pick! This dip is thick, fluffy, chocolatey and just the right amount of sweet to complement the natural sweetness of the fruits without overwhelming them. This is super quick to whip up and easy to bring to a potluck, serve to guests or just make as a snack! However you serve it, it’s sure to be a crowd pleaser.

I slightly modified this recipe (I used light ingredients) from the Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook. Taste of Home sent me a free copy and asked me to make one of the recipes for my blog. I don’t accept offers like that unless I’m sure I’m going to love the cookbook or product, but I am a huge Taste of Home fan, so I knew this book was sure to be filled with hits. The only problem was deciding what to make first. I especially liked this book because in addition to yummy recipes they included really useful cooking tips and advice on everything from taking proper measurements to grilling tips to how to devein shrimp to how to purchase the best meats at the grocery store. Many of the recipes have specific tips alongside them and if you’ve ever read a recipe that told you to make a yeast dough, stuff a chicken or caramelize onions and you thought “huh?” this book breaks down the steps with photos. It also teaches you how to make condiments like herb butter, Chili Mayo or Curry Ketchup and they have a fun chapter on DIY cocktails. If you love cookbooks I totally recommend it!

Chocolate Fruit Dip

Source: Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook

Ingredients:
8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t vanilla extract
2 cups light whipped topping (I used Cool Whip Light)

Directions:
1.    In a large bowl, combine the sugar and cream cheese and beat with a hand mixer until combined. Add the cocoa powder and vanilla extract and beat again until thoroughly mixed. Add the Cool Whip and continue to beat until well combined.

Serving Suggestion:
I ate this with strawberries because it’s what I had on hand, but you could certainly serve it with an assortment of fruits (pineapple, melon, bananas, etc). Almost every fruit goes well with chocolate!

Yields 16 (2 tablespoon) servings. WW P+: 2 per serving (P+ calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)
Nutrition Information per serving from myfitnesspal.com: 75 calories, 9 g carbs, 4 g fat, 1 g protein, 1 g fiber