Listly by rosalie-galvez-1
In modern urban neighborhoods, the kitchens have taken the central position. It would not be an overstatement to say that the whole house revolves around this room. You get three meals a day here, and it even doubles as a living room when you have intimate friends and family over.
It is perfectly natural to take a look into the uses of melted chocolate before we go out on a spree to melt it wholesale.
Apparently, there are so many!
One of the most popular among cafés and households is to make their own home-made chocolate lollipops. This is one of the surest ways to become popular among the kids of the neighborhood overnight, especially during festivals like Halloween or Thanksgiving. If you are wondering how to make chocolate lollipops at home, you will find molds of every type at a local departmental store or online. Pour chocolate in them, add a stick, and let them settle in a freezer.
Pro Tip: You can skip the stick part and make customized chocolates of your own. Wrap those in a food-friendly paper and gift them to your loved ones.
Often, melted chocolate finds its way at the top of other confections and sweet items, as an added layer. For instance, in the bowl of melted chocolate, virtually everything goes inside and will come with delicious chocolate on top.
The most common things that are ornamented using melted chocolates are:
• Cake Pops
• Cookies
• Pretzel Sticks
• Fruit
The best thing about candy melts is that they are already pre-colored, so you do not need to add extra food color to give the perfect color to your chocolate. Just look for the color of candy melts that would go perfect with the theme of the event.
After going through the uses and ease of operating, now you will have a clear idea of why people love to use candy melts for a variety of purposes.
All praises and qualities aside, people often complain about the consistency of melted chocolate. Even after heating and beating, it just remains quite thick which makes it hard to handle, especially for a dip and stick purposes. There is no way you can resort to heat chocolate periodically because that would burn the chocolate.
Viscous chocolate may give the impression of quality and purity, but its application is very difficult. For example, there are chances of breaking the item in the bowl of melted chocolate if it is too thick. Or the item is prone to breakage due to the stickiness of the chocolate.
Thinning out seems to be a great way to iron out kinks in, otherwise, awesome chocolate. It will easy to work around it and the consistency will go from thick to just perfect. The cherry on top is that your desired product will have a smooth chocolate coating on top without any lumps or bumps.
Now, let us explore the techniques of thinning out candy melts:
Since the problem is mutual for both business owners and households, there is a ready-made solution to this. Many chocolate brands decided to address the issue of thickness in candy melts by introducing their own “thinning aid” items. You can purchase them both from the departmental stores or online and they will help you in getting the right consistency for chocolate melts so that your task goes on without any hiccup.
The composition of such thinning agents is not a mystery. Usually, they are made of oils. On the brand side, they tinker with the formula a little bit to customize it according to their chocolate. The most common ration of mixing thinning aid with chocolate is two tablespoons of thinning aid with around twelve ounces of candy melts, once they are melted. For your chocolate and thinning aid type, you should read the instructions carefully before starting the thinning process.
On the other hand, if you have already candy melts at home, and you do not want to spend extra money or time to shop for the thinning aid, you are in luck. There are other ways to thin your candy melts at home, without any specialized item.
This is by far the easiest and simplest method to thin out candy melts at home. Mostly, you would not have to go to a store to get any ingredients. There are healthy odds that you will have shortening already in some drawer of your kitchen, making it an extremely convenient option.
After you are done melting candy melts, add one teaspoon of shortening in the bowl, and stir the chocolate. If the melted chocolate does not reach the level of your desired consistency, you can add another teaspoon of shortening. Keep on stirring and add one teaspoon of shortening at a time. Be attentive and notice the marginal change of consistency after each spoon of shortening. If you get in too thin, you would have to add extra melted candy melts. Also, keep in mind that you want some thickness and consistency to the chocolate to be able to coat other items with it. If you make it too thin, it would not be able to stick and slip right off. You can do practice dipping to reach the perfect consistency level for your chocolate melts.
Keep in mind to stir for a while before adding another teaspoon of shortening.
It is another product that you can purchase from the market to thin out candy melts at home. It is specially manufactured to thin out a variety of items including candy melts, carob, and many other items.
The main ingredient in the manufacturing of paramount crystals is hydrogenated palm kernel oil. Interestingly, it is not in liquid form as many of you expect it to be. Instead, they are packed as little crystal pieces that appear to be dry but melts instantly once you put them in your hot melted chocolate.
This is one of the preferred methods to thin out candy melts by professionals. The reason is the even consistency and perfect texture throughout the melted chocolate, once it is hardened. Since shortening will make the melted chocolate some extra soft because it is soft at room temperature, paramount crystals are hard at room temperature. This means you will get crisp in your melted chocolate when it cools down to room temperature.
Now if you are looking for a way to thin out candy melts with even consistency and let it settle crispy when cooled down, you have a winner here in the face of paramount crystals. You can buy them from a grocery store or you can order them online. They will, certainly, get you closer to your perfect recipe.
Cocoa butter is one of the chief ingredients in the processing and manufacturing of chocolates. This is the constituent that gives the chocolate milky texture as it melts in your mouth. Now, if you add pure cocoa butter in a hot, melted candy, it will make the mixture thin and fluid in an instant. In a way, that is getting the perfect consistency of melted chocolate without adding any extra item in the mix. Candy melts will stay true to their origin so you do not have to worry about special circumstances in which added items could react in a strange way.
By the sound of it, this is an excellent method to thin out candy melts that will help you decorate both candy tops, cakes, etc. Yet, there is a catch in it. Cocoa butter is an expensive item. If you are willing to spare some extra bucks to thin out candy melts at home by staying true to the original ingredients of the chocolate, you have a winner. But if it too costly for your budget, you are better off using one of the other techniques to thin out melted chocolate. Just remember, this method will get you a creamy and buttery texture in your chocolate with the perfect consistency of your own specification. So, think over the pros over cons before making the final decision.
Read more about Cooking