It’s really not that hard, you just have to forget about the colorings and flavorings that you find in the grocery store.

Now to be fair we do make great chocolate covered strawberries for Christmas and just about every other Holiday or occasion, and ship those nationwide, but we do get a lot of basic questions on how to work with chocolate or some special work at home and it’s a lot easier to put the information out here than to get hundreds of helpdesk cases on the subject. You’ll see the same concept applied to our stores FAQ section, we try to provide you with as much information as possible so you can help yourself.

So why is the grocery store the wrong place to go? That is because the colorings and flavorings in the grocery store are generally water based, and if you add a few drops of a water based coloring or flavoring you will ruin that batch of chocolate. Water makes chocolate seize (get clumpy and unworkable) and ruins it for dipping.

So how do you color and flavor chocolate?

It’s pretty simple: use flavorings and colorings that do not have any water in them.

So if you wanted to make mint flavored chocolate you would add peppermint oil, there are tons of types of flavoring oils. They are very simple to use, a few drops of the oil and you have a pound of chocolate flavored to taste.

For the colorings you have multiple choices from colored cocoa butter and dry colorants which are fairly expensive to oil based colors which are a lot more economical.

Sometimes you can find a limited selection of candy colors in a craft store, you have to be very careful because the company that makes these colors also makes frosting colors and the packaging is exactly the same, you must read the packaging to make sure it is the oil casted candy color and not the water based frosting color.

In a commercial environment dropping $75 on a set of high end colorants is not a big deal, but for the average hobbyist the minimum quantities would be a bit much. That’s where the oil based colorings come into play, they are a lot less expensive and can be found here. There are other options: you could dip in your tempered chocolate but then use colored sprinkles or a non-chocolate colored drizzle.

Thats the basics.. but what if you want to get really fancy?

By now everyone has seen the truffles and bite sized candies that have a distinctive/pearlized finish.. they look like they have tiny sparkles in the finish of the chocolate. These are a lot simpler to make than you would imagine, all they did was carefully melt some special cocoa butter and wipe the inside of a mold with it (in the demonstrations at candy shows the host just uses his finger), the messy act of just dipping a (clean or gloved) finger in some melted cocoa butter or tinted chocolate and just wiping it in a mold can make really pretty candy, (just don’t stop in the middle of the wipe or you will leave a fingerprint).

Of course not all flavoring has to be in the chocolate, you can get that peppermint flavor just by crushing some of those round peppermints that are everywhere at Christmas. Put some in a plastic bag, wrap it with paper and give it to someone who knows how to use a hammer: far away from kitchen counter tops replace the plastic bag and use them as you would any sprinkles.

Chocolate Marshmallow Brownies

Preheat oven at 350°
Pan size 13×9, prep pan with parchment paper or by greasing using the butter wrapping paper.

Beat  4 eggs well
2 cups sugar
Add  4 squares chocolate (melt butter and chocolate together first)
1 cup butter
Mix in 1 ½ cup flour    (mix the following in slowly, do not beat)
1 t. baking powder
½ t. salt
4 t. vanilla
Bake for 45 minutes at 350° .  When a toothpick comes out ‘clean’ they are done.
After 45 minutes put 1 cup of the small marshmallows  (I put in a little more) and return to the oven for 5 minutes. (if you don’t have small marshmallows you can cut up the big ones with a scissors.)
Frosting:
2 T. Butter melt with
1 square chocolate
Mix in  ¾ box of powdered sugar (or the whole box if you are like me and really have no use for ¼ of a box of powdered sugar laying around) and add enough milk to make it spread easy.

Spread the frosting while the marshmallows are hot. Let cool before cutting.

While the original recipe called for walnuts, I’ve never had them that way, they really would not add much.
I’ve taken the brownie base and used it in other custom desserts.
In one case the brownie was surrounded by a open topped chocolate shell and topped with raspberry moose with a little raspberry puree on the side.

Do you have some chocolate that has been knocked out of temper?, a little seazed up from steam, water, or other mishaps? Use it for baking: it will work fine and beats tossing it out. Chocolate used to bake a cake or used in frosting does not need to be in temper.

 Things you’ll need :

1. Real Chocolate
   1. If the ingredient list does not contain cocoa butter it’s not real chocolate and does not need tempering, it is a coating that you could have picked up in your local  crafts store. For a better quality non-chocolate coating you can pick some up online , they have all sorts of colors and flavors. But it’s not real chocolate, it’s made for amateur users.
   2. Generally you will not find a good quality chocolate, made for dipping or molding,  in your local grocery. We do not sell raw chocolate for this to the public. Chocolate chips or candy bars are the wrong type of chocolate for a first rate product.
   3. Some Whole Foods stores sell pre-cut blocks of the right type of chocolate in the bakery section, these are big blocks that are cut off of 10 pound slabs.. not candy bars… If you’d like to order real chocolate online this is a good source.
2. A thermometer with a visible range of 85-110
   1. An old style candy thermometer does not have the visibility needed in the temperature ranges needed. “candy thermometers” are really made for higher temperature work like fudge and hard candies, they are not really good for chocolate work.
   2. Check the digital (meat) thermometers you have around the house, we’ve seen digital thermometers by Pyrex, for under $10 in the local grocery stores, which are perfect for this type of work.
3. A lot of paper towels
4. The fruit that you plan to dip or molds you plan to fill.
5. If you are going to dip fruit you’ll need wax paper.

 Tempering determines the hardness, final gloss, and contraction of chocolate. At each step of the tempering process the temperature of the chocolate must be exact and uniform. A tiny variation can ruin the result. If you heat the chocolate too much (too hot) you will burn it, if you introduce moisture the chocolate will seize (get clumpy). Because of this it is very important that your tools, dishes and hands be dry.

First step: wash and dry your hands, dry with paper towels, drying with a used dish rag just reintroduces everything you tried to wash off. Do not apply hand moisturizer while working on this since the oils in the moisturizer may effect the process. We’ll do a whole post on washing your hands in the future..

Melting the chocolate:

Some people favor a double boiler, others favor a microwave, it’s all personal preference. There are pluses and minuses to both methods.

Things to watch out for:

        Double Boiler:

1. It you boil the water you can create steam (water vapor), this water vapor can cause the chocolate to seize, you do not need the water to be that hot.
2. Never cover the chocolate, condensation will form on the underside of the lid  and fall into the chocolate causing it to seize.
3. Overheating can cause the chocolate to burn, the overheat temperature varies for each type (milk/white/dark) and brand of chocolate. In reality as long as you never go above 110 degrees you are safe, and there is no reason to bring chocolate above 100 degrees.

 Microwave

1. If you try to rush the melting process you will burn a section (pocket) of the chocolate which will ruin the whole batch. If you really overdo it: you’ll create a really awful caramel…
2. Never cover the chocolate while melting, condensation will form and will cause the chocolate to seize.
3. Until you get very practiced at melting chocolate in the microwave the best process is to only heat it for small periods of time: 30 seconds at a time on “defrost”, stirring between heating.
4. Most thermometers are not microwave safe, make sure the thermometer is not microwaved.

For home tempering I’ve found the following to be the easiest for when I’m away from the equipment we normally use.

Have all your dipping materials, molds and such ready as the less you have to adjust the temperature of the chocolate once it’s tempered the less your chances of something going wrong.

1. Separate out the chocolate you plan to melt from the rest of the chocolate.   
   Get the chocolate you don’t plan to melt away from your work area.. you don’t want to melt it by accident.
2. Using a sharp knife, slice some chocolate from a block of chocolate that is in good temper, if you are using buttons you’ll need to finely chop up some buttons.
    Make the slices as thin as possible
   The ratio of shavings should be I part shavings to 9 parts melted coating, so you are going to shave 10% off of the block.
   Set these shavings aside away from any heat sources. I do my chopping on a piece of waxed paper, it’s much easier in the long run (and no cleanup is needed)
3. Break up the big block of chocolate and melt the chocolate till it is heated to about 100° degrees, stir often. The heating also breaks up any cocoa butter crystals that may have formed previously, using shavings that are “in temper” you can bring all the chocolate into temper. (so if you have leftover chocolate from a previous melting you can re-temper it using this method as many times as you want.
4. Cool the melted coating to about 92°-94°, stir chocolate while it is cooling, this helps cool the chocolate and prevents ‘hot spots”.
5. Stir the shavings into the melted chocolate until the shavings are completely melted and thoroughly mixed into the coating, as you are doing this the temperature of the melted chocolate will drop.
6. Once the chocolate has cooled below 89° you are ready to start dipping/filling the molds.
   1. Use room temperature air to cool the coating
   2. Heat the coating very gradually if it is too cold . The coating can now be used for either enrobing or molding,  never take the tempered chocolate above 90° as this can knock your chocolate out of temper. 

If you have experience with chocolate and you’d like to make your chocolate thinner add some cocoa butter to the chocolate while it’s being melted. Thinner chocolate is better for finely detailed molds or when you want the shells on dipped fruit to be very thin. Please note: that the higher the cocoa butter content the higher the chance that things will go wrong. (bloom.. that grayish film that forms on chocolate when it is out of temper (it’s still safe to eat.. it just effects how it looks)).

The O’Donnell Family Molasses Cookie Recipe

As passed, and updated as needed, from Mrs O’Donnell to her daughter Eliene O’Donnell Wentz, to her daughter Janice Wentz Manley, to her son Paul  (Janice had four boys).

Mix completely
3/4 Cup            Shortening (butter works (1 and ½ sticks))
1  Cup             Sugar (white granulated)

Add slowly while mixing

1 Egg         (Chicken)
1/2 cup       Molasses
2 cup         Flour
1 Teaspoon    Salt
2 Teaspoons   Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon    Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon  Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon  Ginger

Chill the dough until it is not sticky when you touch it.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, roll each ball in a dish of sugar (do each one separately) place on un-greased cookie sheet.

Cook for 9-12 minutes (depending on oven) watch carefully the last few minutes

Let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before letting them finish cooling on a paper plate (or paper towel, or rack…), if you try to remove them from the cookie sheet too soon the will scrunch up.

Chill unused dough between batches, according to grandma Wentz you can also freeze the dough in waxed paper and cook them at a later date.

I get asked for some of the recipes I’ve done in the past, (see it’s not just chocolate covered strawberries), as time permits I’ll post them here.

1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cups (two sticks butter (softened)
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup light corn syrup
3 tablespoons butter
1 package (11 to12 ounce size) butterscotch chips
1 package (12 ounce size) white chocolate chips
3/4 cup peanuts (salted)
1/2 - 3/4 cups Dinosaur ice cream decorations (type can kind can be changed to suit the season, they are the same as the tiny cupcake decorations you’ll find on the cake aisle), the dinosaurs are just lot less expensive than the ones in the cake aisle.

Pre-heat the oven to 350

Mix brown sugar, 1 cup butter, vanilla, and egg in large bowl.

Slowly mix in flour.

Evenly spread the above into the bottom of an un-greased 13x9x2 pan

Bake 20 minutes or until light brown.

Cool 15-20 minutes

Heat corn syrup, 2 tablespoons butter and the butterscotch chips in a medium sized saucepan over lowest heat. Stir constantly, remove from heal & let cool 5-10 minutes.

Pour and spread butterscotch over baked layer, sprinkle full bag of white chocolate chips on top ,then the peanuts, and then spread like it a frosting as it melts, before it thickens (cools): sprinkle the dinosaur decorations over white chocolate (or ice cream/cake decorations) and press into the top.

Let cool.

Makes 3 dozen – 2×1 ½ inch bars.

Notes: while you can freeze these after baking they do get a bit crumbly when thawed. This is partially the result of the three layers freezing at different temps.

The dinosaur ice cream decorations are the same thing as you’ll find on the cup cake aisle but they are a lot less expensive than the ones packaged as cake decorations.

The next time I make these up I’ll try and take a picture.