Dipping in the chocolate

Tracy posted a comment about melting chocolate for dipping. I went back and looked at my post about making truffles and tempering and realized I kinda glossed over how to do this, so let me explain how I do it.

Tracy asked about dipping in white chocolate, which is easier and harder than real chocolate depening on how you look at it. White chocolate is basically cocoa butter and sugar and since it is white, it does a good job hiding tempering issues, so if it isn’t perfect, don’t worry. The chocolate you use for coating is almost always going to be just chocolate (either white or dark), so the ingredient list is very simple at least. One time I did make up some ganache (the recipe for the centers) and while it was still warm I dipped strawberries in it. It was ok, but I think plain chocolate is better.

Problems with white chocolate (if they are white chips from the grocer) include the fact that it is going to be alot thicker than real chocolate. When you go to dip your centers in it, it will be like trying to dip them in tar. I did this the first time and there was alot of cursing involved. If you buy white courverture, it is going to have a lower viscosity and will be easier to dip in.

If you use white chips from the store you will need to thin it a bit. I use cocoa butter which you can order from here, or I have used vegetable shortening in the past. The vegetable shortening isn’t as nice as cocoa butter because it doesn’t melt in the mouth the same way. You won’t need alot, just enough to allow it to flow well.

To melt the chocolate you will do it the same way you melt it for tempering. Get two pans that fit inside one another or a double boiler. Put some water in the bottom one and heat it on the stove. Put your chocolate in the top one and place that pan inside the one with the water. You want it to balance so that the bottom of the chocolate pan does not touch the water in the heating pan.

The water will heat your chocolate pan enough to melt it. You don’t need it very hot. In fact, hotter than 110F and you will scorch it. White chocolate will burn easily so keep an eye on it. If you are thinning it out, add your cocoa butter or shortening before you start heating.

CAUTION: Be very careful that you do not get water in your chocolate, or it will sieze and you’ll end up throwing it away.

Once it is all melted and you are certain that it is thin enough for you (it will thicken up somewhat when you cool it) then take the chocolate pan off the heat and cool it in a bowl of cold water (you can use ice to help cool it). Cool it down to about 70F, then warm it back up to about 88F. This temp should be perfect for dipping the truffles (in fact the temper in the white chocolate should be pretty good at this point). You can warm it up with the heating pan again if it cools down. Check here for more details about tempering.

If you just want to melt the white chocolate and are not concerned about even trying to temper it, just warm it gently and watch the temperature so that it doesn’t go above 90F. Its going to be kinda thick so you’ll want to add your thinning material slowly until its thin enough to work with.

One problem I run into is that I tend to thin the white chocolate too much, and then it coats the truffles really thinly. With a dark center, it makes them kinda dull colored and not the nice opaque white appearance. I also had a hard time trying to thin it out enough without eventually going to cocao butter. Since the cocoa butter is solid at room temperature, you get a nice firm coating. But the shortening is soft at room temp, and you will soften the coating with the more you add.

One other thing which I have not tried is the “dipping chocolate” in the baking aisles. I’ve seen white and dark chocolate squares that you can heat in the microwave and use them for dipping. I have no idea how they taste, so its a risk.

Making the truffles rounder. You kinda have to practice rolling them in your hands until you get a feel for how to smooth them out. A melon baller or a cake decorating gun get you there part way, but there’s alot of rolling after that. If they get too cold after scooping them out, they are harder to roll and tend to crumble, and then you have to kinda smoosh them back together again. Try letting the scooped pieces firm up at room temperature (if its winter or fall and not too hot in the house) instead of chilling them in the fridge before trying to do the hand rolling part. You’ll find you can only roll 3-4 before your hands get too much chocolate on them and you’ll need to clean them off again. Good handwashing is critical.

Oh yes, and striping the white chocolate coated truffles looks especially nice because it shows up so well. Melt some dark chocolate and pour/scoop it into a small ziplock bag, then carefully cut a very tiny corner off, you can squeeze out nice thin lines of dark chocolate onto your white truffles without using some fancy pastry bag.

There it is. Good luck!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Just chocolate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.