Chocolate candies

Making chocolate candies at home is much easier than you probably think. From those expensive chocolate-covered strawberries, to actual chocolate bars, with or without fillings, with a variety of coatings… you can make it all at home if you just have some time to spare. Sure, you can just buy it all. But where’s the heart in that? These make great presents for friends and loved ones!

 

Materials:

• Cooking chocolate (not baking chocolate). They come in blocks, bars, or coins. For begginers, I’d recommend avoiding at first the white chocolate and those that come in colors, because these tend to be quite harder to melt properly, which makes them somewhat harder to work with.
• Molds
• Fillings or coatings of your choice, such as nuts, cherries, creams, marshmallows, coconut shavings, etc.

Instructions:

• Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. HERE’s a nice, simple guide on how to do this.
• Coat your mold with a thin layer of chocolate, making sure to cover everything well.
• Place your mold inside the freezer and leave it there for about 5 minutes. After this time, check on it, and if it is hardened, take it out. If not, leave it for a few more minutes. Don’t leave it there more than necessary, because it will crack.
• If the layer of chocolate you made is very thin (you can see through it at some spots) coat it again with more layers, repeating the previous steps, as necessary to create a solid chocolate shell.
• Once you have a solid shell, you can fill it with anything you desire. Here’s some examples, which I have done and work great!:
• An almond
• A cherry
• Melted marshmallows
• Hazelnut truffle paste
• Melted chocolate mixed with crisp rice (outcome will be like a Crunch chocolate bar)
• Fill the mold to the brim with melted chocolate, and tap the mold firmly against the counter or table, so that any bubbles that might be trapped in the chocolate can come to the surface. You don’t want there to be ugly holes in your candy when it hardens!
• Place the mold in the freezer until it hardens completely. The hardening time will depend on the size of your chocolate candies. In my experience, small bonbons take 15-30 minutes, and chocolate bars about 30 minutes. You can also just leave it in the refrigerator for many hours or overnight, so that you don’t risk it cracking in the intense cold of the freezer.
• When the chocolates are hardened, remove them carefully from the mold. You can do this by turning the mold over the counter (carefully, because sometimes they come out easily and you don’t want them to break!) and tapping it lightly against the surface.
• Enjoy your chocolate candies! Don’t forget to share them with your loved ones!

If you end up with some remaining melted chocolate, just dip some fruits or cookies in it, put them in the freezer for some minutes on a non-sticky surface (like wax paper or a baking sheet), and voila! You got yourself some home-made chocolate-dipped goodies! ^o^