Has Your Chocolate Turned Out To Be A Crumbled Mess? Here’s 3 Tips for How to Make Your Best Colored Chocolate

1. Pick Your Chocolate

Photo: Orson Gygi

You’ll obviously need to pick white chocolate for the task at hand, well, because traditional milk chocolate or even dark chocolate are just too dark. But what white chocolate should you use? That’s actually the great part. You don’t need to be too picky, but having white chocolate chips might help with melting more than buying it in bar form. Check to see if your white chocolate contains real cocoa butter. If it does, it might end up soft and lose its shine after setting. This won’t affect the taste. But you can restore the gloss by tempering the chocolate.

2. Water and Chocolate Don’t Mix

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When you are making colored chocolate, the first rule is to never use water or water-based dyes. Water is the base for standard food coloring. Don’t use it or you’ll get a crumbly mess! Try using a powder-based coloring or an oil-based coloring to blend perfectly with your chocolate. The oil one is suggested more because it is a little bit easier to work with.  You’ll also want to make sure to add your coloring AFTER you have removed the melted chocolate from heat. How do you heat up your melted chocolate to the perfect temp? I’m glad you asked.

3. Use a Double Boiler

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This one is fairly simple but is basically a necessity to ensure the perfect melting temp. Make a double boiler to melt your white chocolate. This can be done in a number of ways. A metal or heat-safe glass bowl over a boiling pot work great, or you can go for a purpose-built double boiler. And It’s recommended that you use a silicone spatula to be able to move the chocolate around and to mix in the different colors. The double boiler will help you get that perfect heat so you aren’t scorching your chocolate prior to coloring it!