This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/askculinary by /u/UltimaGabe on 2023-09-08 17:36:50.
A few weeks ago I decided I'd like to learn to make various kinds of candy, and I found some recipes for home-made candy bars like Snickers and Peanut Butter Cups and so on. So I got a few bags of chocolate chips (Toll House brand, if it makes a difference), and used those for the chocolate, which I melt in a double-boiler so as not to burn it.
There's two problems with the chocolate, though, and I'm trying to figure out if there's something I can do to fix them, or if I need to do something fundamentally different.
- The chocolate isn't as solid at room temperature as I thought it would be. It melts the moment you touch it, so it gets all over your fingers even if you eat it quickly, and the only solution seems to be to refrigerate it, but then other ingredients (like caramel or nougat) might be too hard.
- Even when it's heated up and melted, the consistency is way too thick. I was expecting to be able to pour liquid chocolate into a mold or over a wafer or whatever, and get a thin layer that would harden as it cooled; instead, this chocolate I'm using only ever gets to the consistency of yogurt or room-temperature butter, meaning I have to scoop up a glob of it, shake it until it falls onto whatever I'm putting it on, and then try to smooth it out with a knife. And as a result, it always ends up a much thicker layer than I would have liked.
So, what does one need to do to get chocolate to a) have a higher melting point, and b) melt to a more liquid consistency? Can I add anything to the chocolate chips I already have to make them like that, or do I need to get a different brand or variety of chocolate? (Or, do I need to make the chocolate straight from scratch?)