posted 01-06-2003 12:20 PM ET(US)         

Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans

1/3 cup roasted coffee beans
1/2 cup chocolate (if not chips, broken into pieces)

First you have to melt the chocolate. You can do it according to the package directions, or, for speed, simplicity and fewer dishes to wash, nuke it. I melt it in the microwave in the bowl I'm going to use for dipping the beans. This method is fast: a half-cup of chocolate pieces will melt in about two minutes on high in my oldie-but-goodie microwave. If yours is one of those newfangled high-powered suckers, use half-power. Stopping once to stir will speed the melting and prevent any overdone chocolate.

Once the chocolate melts and before it coagulates back into a solid chunk, add half of the beans to it, stirring to coat them well. Now it's just a matter of dropping the beans onto waxed paper. I try to keep them separated into one or two-bean clumps--a few of these babies packs a hefty punch. The easiest way I've found to keep the bean-clustering to a minimum is to scoop up a forkful of dripping-with-chocolate beans and then push them off one at a time with the tines of another fork, aiming for the waxed paper. Repeat the dip-and-drop with the rest of the beans.