Chocolate Bark Candy Recipes - Chocolate Chocolate and More! (2024)

FAQs

How to make chocolate more runny? ›

To thin melted chocolate, add a small amount of neutral oil, like vegetable oil or cocoa butter, stirring gently until it reaches the desired consistency. Melt slowly to avoid overheating, and keep water out to prevent the chocolate from seizing.

If nothing extra was added to the melting chocolate, and it's still soft, then perhaps the chocolate wasn't heated to a high enough temperature to temper, or break down the crystals in the chocolate. The bark is still salvageable, though. Simply store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Chocolate bark is actually a sheet of chocolate that is usually covered with nuts, dried fruits, candies or even additional pieces of chocolate.

To keep your chocolate bark from melting, a proper tempering process is necessary. Tempering is a process where the chocolate is brought to certain temperatures, which essentially optimizes the form of the cocoa butter fat crystals and keeps it stable.

You don't add ingredients to chocolate to make it harden, you temper it by heating it to a specific temperature, cooling it to another temperature, then heating it again. This causes the chocolate to crystalize in a way that leaves it hard and shiny. The temperatures are different for different kinds of chocolate.

Melting chocolate with milk can accelerate the melting process and make your chocolate more creamy and rich and less bitter to taste.

For bark-making, use the best chocolate within your budget, either in bars or discs meant for melting and baking. Valrhona, Callebaut, Scharffen Berger, Guittard, and Ghirardelli are all good options.

Tempered chocolate is wonderful to use when making homemade candy, such as truffles or peanut butter cups, or peppermint bark, because it maintains a nice smooth, shiny, and hard texture even at room temperature.

Chocolate seizes when it comes into contact with even a small amount of liquid or moisture during the melting process. This is because the water causes the sugar in the chocolate to dissolve and then form a syrup, which binds the cocoa particles together, creating a grainy, thick, and clumpy texture.

If you use a type of white chocolate made with palm kernel or coconut oil, the dark and white chocolate layers will separate from each other because the oil won't allow it to bond to the dark chocolate layer.

What's the best chocolate to use for chocolate covered strawberries? ›

I like to use semisweet chocolate because I find it has the perfect balance of sweetness for the strawberries. Milk chocolate and white chocolate are a little too sweet for my preference, and they're more challenging to work with when coating. However, if that's your preference, then go for it!

Use a sharp knife or bench scraper to create clean lines. You can go for traditional rectangular shapes or get creative with various shapes and sizes. Gently press the knife or bench scraper into the chocolate and apply even pressure to cut through the bark. Wipe the blade clean after each cut to ensure neat edges.

That's because your chocolate wasn't tempered. Tempered chocolate sets at room temperature and has a snap just like a chocolate bar you buy from the store.

If kept unopened in a cool, dry place, chocolate bark can last up to a year. Once you've opened the package, aim to consume it within a few months.

If you melt the chocolate and work with it without tempering, it will take a long time to set up, will not be shiny, and won't snap; rather, it may be flexible, dull and brittle.

If you want to make your chocolate creamier and thinner, you can add a capful of warm milk to the chocolate.

Chocolate seizes when it comes into contact with even a small amount of liquid or moisture during the melting process. This is because the water causes the sugar in the chocolate to dissolve and then form a syrup, which binds the cocoa particles together, creating a grainy, thick, and clumpy texture.