How do I mould chocolate?

Question

I am planning of buying some butterfly shaped chocolate moulds to make wedding favours for my wedding next year. How would I go about making them? I was planning on making some with milk chocolate and some with white. Do I need to use special chocolate? Thanks, Lau xxx

Answer 1

You can use normal chocolate, but it needs to be tempered. Tempered chocolate is chocolate that has been melted and then cooled in a particular, delicate way in order to achieve the desired crystal structure in the finished, solidified product. If you simply melt chocolate, pour it into a mold, and let it cool, the resulting solid will be inferior to tempered chocolate in three major ways:
* Appearance. Most people have had the experience of opening a chocolate bar that has been forgotten in a cabinet for far too long, and finding a grayish, powdery surface on the chocolate. This is called "bloom". It doesn't actually affect the taste of the chocolate at all, but it doesn't look nice. Untempered chocolate develops serious bloom in 24-48 hours, and it never gets the beautiful shine of tempered chocolate.
* Solidity. Untempered chocolate never develops the hardness, or "snap", that one expects from a piece of chocolate. It can be very messy to serve in warm conditions.
* Mouth Feel. This is the important one. It's all right to dip things in melted chocolate without tempering it if you're going to eat them right away, or you don't care about the appearance, and it's not going to be too warm. But if you want to make candy bars, or molded chocolates, or cups--anything with a largish solid mass of chocolate--you really need to temper. The texture of bulk untempered chocolate is highly unpleasant: it's chewy in a way that chocolate was never meant to be. The flavor doesn't develop properly in your mouth. It's just not right.
# The easiest and most reliable (and most expensive, alas) option is to buy a chocolate-tempering machine. These things really exist; they are finely engineered devices for just this purpose. That kind of specialty product doesn't come cheap; mine cost $330. On the other hand, it's been a major source of joy to me, and it's my favorite kitchen toy. There are several different models available. The one I got is called the Sinsation, from Chandré, and I love it. However, the Chandré company appears to have vanished off the face of the earth, but their former R&D division is now a new company called Chocovision. I haven't really done business with Chocovision yet, but the person that I spoke to there seemed uncharacteristically smart, knowledgeable, and helpful for a customer service person, and it's basically the same machine, so you'll probably be okay with them.
# Finally, it is possible to temper chocolate by hand. It is not easy, but it's possible. You'll need an instant-read thermometer, and it would help a lot to have a heating pad as well. The idea is to melt a lot of chocolate, either in the microwave (on high, stopping to stir every 15 seconds; stop before it's completely melted and stir for a while, and the rest will probably melt from the heat stored in the liquid chocolate) or in a double boiler (over hot, not boiling water), and then add one or two large pieces of well-tempered chocolate and stir constantly until the molten chocolate is within the tempering range. For dark chocolate ("sweet dark", semisweet, or bittersweet) this is about 87-91°F. For milk or white chocolate, try 86-89°F. Your results may vary based on details of the kind of chocolate you use, so experiment. When your thoroughly mixed chocolate is well down into this range, remove the solid chocolate (the "seed") from the pool of tempered chocolate and then keep the tempered chocolate within its tempering range; the reference materials I've seen on this subject recommend a heating pad set on LOW, wrapped in plastic wrap so that it doesn't get covered with chocolate. Good luck; if you go this route, you're going to need it. In the event of a complete failure of tempering, you can always melt it down and try again.

Answer 2

Sinsation Chocolate Tempering Machine

Answer 3

Some stores sell the chocolate "coins" that are used to make molds. They can be in many flavors and colors. They don't have things added to them so they have a much better flavor than chocolate chips or anything like that. To melt them, I take an electric skillet, place a wash cloth down in the skillet, cover it with water, place my "coins" in juice glasses and increase the water level on the outside of the glass. Don't boil, just make warm enough to melt the chocolate. Then brush into your mold or scoop in with a spoon. DON'T get any water in the chocolate or it will become grainy. I love to add nuts to my molds. You can also buy fillings to go in them, like orange filling (tastes like the old ice cream that was half vanilla have orange sherbet), coconut filling (tastes like an Almond Joy bar), caramel filling (you want to eat this without even messing with the chocolate!! - it's soft). Check with your local candy stores to see where you might get it. The chocolate coins don't have the addition of wax or other fillers. So one piece of candy made with that chocolate will satisfy you perfectly whereas a store-bought candy bar may not.

Answer 4

pan of lightly boiling water with a bowl over it not touching the water.
chuck your favorite choccy in when melted pout into molds.
let set

EAT

good luck with the wedding