[CentOS] Testing "dark" SSL sites

So, with all the hubbub around POODLE and ssl, we're preparing a new load 
balancer using HAProxy. 

So we have a set of unit tests written using PHPUnit, having trouble 
validating certificates. How do you test/validate an SSL cert for a prototype 
"foo.com" server if it's not actually active at the IP address that matches 
DNS for foo.com? 

For non-ssl sites, I can specify the url like http://1.2.3.4/path and pass an 
explicit "host: foo.com" http header but that fails for SSL certificate 
validation. 

You can also set a hosts file entry, but that's also rather painful. Is there a 
better option?