I love POLKADOT CHOCOLATE! Who doesn’t right? But what I love mostly about chocolates is that it allows me to make some yummy chocolate desserts with it, in a short time mostly, and no doubt, will taste great! Recipes, especially desserts made with chocolate can never go wrong. Why? Cos’ the main ingredient tastes so well!
Having said that, making chocolate desserts can sometimes be quite tricky. For example, if you were to make Chocolate Fudge Toffees for which you will have to melt the chocolate in a pan, you have to be very careful not to burn the chocolate. Burnt chocolate doesn’t taste that good and worst of all CANNOT be recovered.
Chocolate melting can be done in several ways, depending on the recipe you are following. For example, as I mentioned earlier, for Chocolate Fudge Toffee you can melt the chocolate in a pan over the stove. This can be very tricky and difficult if you’re a beginner and doing this for the first time.So here are some basic guidelines to follow when making chocolate related desserts.
1) One thing you can do, especially if you’re making this for the first time, is to melt the chocolate over heated water. To do this, fill a heavy bottom pan with water and put it to boil.
Place your chocolate in a bowl and as the water is boiling in the pan, slowly place the bowl with chocolate inside the pan so that the heat of the boiling water will melt the chocolate. Make sure you keep a wooden spoon with you to stir the chocolate gently, to ensure that the chocolate is completely melted.
This method will melt your chocolate well and also wont burn it as fast as when you melt it on a stove. Also unlike when melting chocolate over a stove, the chocolate doesn’t tend to harden when taken off of the heat, so it makes it easier for you to work with the melted chocolate with the rest of the recipe.
2) Another way of melting chocolate is with the use of a microwave. This is a common method used by most people, especially when we want to make a quick dessert like fudge brownie. Its an easy way of melting chocolate, however you need to consider a couple of things when doing so;
a) Chocolate melting in a microwave, although happens in minutes can cause the chocolate or part of the chocolate to burn. So if you are going to use this method, you will have to ensure that you check on the chocolate periodically.
b) Steam effect inside a microwave for cooking can also be used, however how applicable this is to chocolate is not yet experimented as far as I’m aware, so I wouldn’t recommend melting chocolate over water inside a microwave.