When making chocolate for candy what is the benefit of starting from scratch compared to simply double boiling existing chocolate bars and using that material?

I am sending this to @thorninmud who is, among other things, a professional chocolatier.

:) thanks @gailcalled

@gailcalled got there first.

It’s my understanding that you need to use melting chocolate to make chocolate candies. Using chocolate chips and such will work, but melting chocolate is actually made to melt and then set up again. Chocolate chips and chocolate bars don’t work that way. Maybe @thorninmud can tell us why.

@bobbinhood thanks for the early nod to what I’m saying.

Just curious what kinds of candy or shapes you make, @Ltryptophan?

@jca dark chocolate raspberry jelly filled cordials.

Conching is part of the problem with making chocolate at home. It’s a texture thing.

The only reason you’d ever want to attempt making your own chocolate from scratch is for the sake of the adventure. You could never produce anything approaching the quality of even a mediocre commercial chocolate.

Besides, that’s not the solution to your problem. I’m willing to bet that you’ve been melting the chocolate, pouring it into the molds, then slinging it into the fridge to make it set, right? The “propensity toward melting” that you’re observing comes from the fact that chocolate treated this way crystallizes in a form having a low melting point. You’ve discovered the harsh fundamental truth of chocolate work: you have to “temper” the chocolate in order to make it set in the proper crystal form.

Tempering involves putting the melted chocolate through a series of temperature manipulations along with agitation. There are several tempering methods, all of which achieve the same result. Searching for “chocolate tempering” on Youtube will turn up many demos. If you melt your chocolate as you have been then temper it using the method of your choice before pouring it into the mold, the pieces will be both prettier and much more heat resistant.

I do lurve that @thorninmud . Just sayin’

You and me both. I melt when he talks hot chocolate.

@gailcalled Tsmper! Temper!

What kind of chocolate are you using? Don’t start off with sweetened chocolate.

Yeah you want to temper your chocolate, and you can bain marie or even microwave it. Microwaving can be better actually as with the bain marie set up you can get moisture in the chocolate and well that’s not exactly good. This is coming from someone who never uses a microwave, one of my chefs at school showed us the way of tempering by microwave and it works very well, just be careful you don’t want to cook the shit out of your chocolate, easy does it. You don’t need to nuke it, get out your long handled spoon put soon effort into it. Baby your chocolate. Look up some recipes and watch demos online. Tempering is warming it up to a certain temperature cooling it down and then warming it back up… in essence. The temperature really varies on what type of chocolate you are using and what % cacao you are going for. You’ll get the hang of it.

When you think it is up to temper test the chocolate by getting some parchment paper out dipping it into the chocolate and freezing it for just a couple of minutes. Well tempered chocolate has snap to it, so you break the cooled chocolate to see if you have achieved this. Properly tempered chocolate should yield both better tasting foodstuffs and less of a “propensity toward melting”. However chocolate likes very specific temperatures and couverture chocolate takes time to master, I can’t say that I have.. but it is hella fun learning and playing with chocolate. You might just want to invest in getting cocoa butter and quality chocolate (Valrhona, when you are ready for it), and if you don’t already have one a chocolate thermometer is very useful to the beginner chocolatier. Your finished results should shine and have more “mouth feel” than your previous attempts.

It’s been a bit since I have done chocolate so I hope I have remembered everything correctly. I sure it would be much easier for me just to make it for you rather than explain it, not that I am offering. :p

I hope @everephebe doesn’t mind me weighing in on one aspect of his comment. As he said, you can verify whether your tempering efforts have paid off by dipping a scrap of paper in the tempered chocolate and then setting it aside to observe the drying process. But it’s essential that you not put the dipped paper in a cold environment while it’s drying.

One big difference that tempering makes is in the drying speed of the chocolate. Untempered chocolate takes a very long time to set at room temperature, while tempered chocolate sets readily in normal room temperatures (<75 degrees). Your dip test will reflect this. If the chocolate on the paper is actually tempered, you will see unmistakable signs of drying within 2 minutes. If you’ve missed the mark with your tempering technique (a frequent occurrence), you’ll know because after 3 minutes or so the dip test will still show no signs of drying.

Putting the test in the fridge or freezer will deprive you of this valuable indicator, since even untempered chocolate will set quickly in the cold. What’s more, it will cause much of the chocolate on the test to set in the unstable “gamma” crystal form even if it is properly tempered.

Keep in mind that tempering is fussy work. Just going through all of the prescribed steps is no guarantee of a good result. That’s why you have to do the dip test at the end, no matter how good you are tempering. If the test dries quickly and has a smooth satin sheen, you’re good to go (work quickly though, because your tempered chocolate will soon thicken radically in your bowl and reheating it has to be done with care as you risk going out of temper again). If the test is slow to set, or looks funky once it does, then just rewarm the chocolate and repeat the tempering process. You can do this as many times as necessary.

@thorninmud, and @everephebe thanks.

Now I will do some work on this and check back in.

@thorninmud I hear ya but… I mean 2 or 3 minutes in the frizzer to do a snap test ain’t gonna do too much harm, ya know. It is a cheat or hack if you prefer like the microwave. And maybe it’s not cool if you are a professional Chocolatier, I really don’t know about that though. I’m not talking about a drying test, I’m talking snap test: If the chocolate breaks and you hear the tell-tale snap, you’re good; if not, start over.

This is a technique I learned from a pretty spiffing Chef who does have a pretty damn sharp resume: She trained under Jacques Torres (Mr. Chocolate) and Kurt Walrath. She worked at Le Bernardin, Le Cirque, The Rainbow Room and Windows on the World. She also has judged National Pastry Championships… Just sayin’. If it is good enough for my old Chef Instructor than it is good enough for me, a non-Chocolatier. If you still think this is sacrilege I’d love to hear more of your thoughts. I would normally defer to your expertise but I am going off of another Professor Chef/Chocolatier techniques here, a Chef who I deeply respect. She is kind of badass actually.

P.S. This is awesome to be slightly disagreeing with someone about couverture technique. Lurve. :D