Melting Chocolate – How to Melt Chocolate

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Homemade Chocolates rock and I am just getting ready to post a few of the Homemade Chocolate recipes in this blog. The one step common to making variety of Homemade chocolates is melting the chocolates themselves. In this post, I explain the method to melt chocolates. At the end of this post, I have also put down some notes on the care to be taken to store and melt the chocolates before one starts preparing Homemade Chocolates.

Chopped Dark and Milk Chocolate
Chopped Dark and Milk Chocolate

Melting Chocolates with Double Boiling Method:

  1. Take the Chocolate bars, cut them into small pieces with the help of a knife. The chopped Chocolates must be at room temperature before melting.
  2. You need one steel bowl and other sauce pan for Double Boiling Method. One for boiling the water and sauce pan for melting the Chocolate. Transfer the chocolate to a sauce pan which can fit well over the other vessel with only slightly bigger diameter. When the sauce pan sits on top of the bowl, ensure that there is no space on the sides for the steam to escape. If steam escapes while melting chocolate, it might result in the chocolate getting mixed with humidity or water content in the steam and spoiling the mixture. The name double boiling method is derived from the fact that you have two vessels being heated, one sitting on top of the other.
  3. Fill the bottom vessel with 1-1/2 inch water and boil it. When the water boils, reduce the heat to the minimum. Now transfer all the chocolates to the sauce pan on top of it, making sure that the base of the pan does not come in contact with water boiling underneath. Leave an inch of space between the two vessels and allow the chocolates in the top pan to melt with heat transferred by the steam coming out of bottom vessel. Again, the water in the bottom vessel should not be boil too much and ensure that the heat is set to minimum when the water is boiling.
  4. Once the Chocolates in the top pan start to melt, gently stir with spatula or with spoon. When the Chocolate has almost melted fully, turn off the heat. Now remove the sauce pan from vessel and place the pan on a towel, so that the moisture will be absorbed. Now stir gently the melted chocolates in the pan again for 2-3 min till the Chocolate is fully melted and its feel is smooth and look of melted chocolate is shiny or glossy.

How to Melt Chocolate in Microwave:

  1. Take the Chocolate bar, cut them into small pieces with the help of knife. The chopped Chocolate must be at room temperature before melting.
  2. Transfer the chopped Chocolate pieces to a microwave safe bowl. Place the chocolate bowl in the Microwave and heat the contents in regular Microwave mode for about 60-90 seconds depending on the type of the chocolate(see below for details). Melt in such a way that the Chocolate looks just a little melted (not too much). Now remove the heated Chocolate bowl from the Microwave (immediately after heating) and with the help of spoon/spatula stir the melted chocolate till it turns to a smooth paste without lumps being formed as seen in the image below.
Melted Chocolate
Melted Chocolate

I use Samsung Microwave, so for that

Dark Chocolate – takes about 1-1/2 minutes to melt.
Milk Chocolate – takes about 1-1/2 minutes to melt
White Chocolate it takes about a minute (60 sec).

Notes:

  1. Always store the Dark, Milk and White chocolate bars in an air-tight container. Do not place the Chocolates in refrigerator or freezer under any circumstances. This can spoil the Chocolates and also make it difficult to melt it.
  2. Do not melt the chocolate over direct heat on stove and always go for double boiling method if you do not want to use Microwave. Direct heating will spoil the Chocolate and can make it unfit for consumption.
  3. Do not overheat the chocolates in microwave as it spoils the chocolates and lumps may form after stirring the Chocolates. The time taken to heat depends on which microwave oven you use, the make and the model. Some microwave ovens takes more time to melt. To be on the safer side, try keeping initially for a minute and then go for 30 seconds or a minute more upto a total of 2 minutes. Also, if you are going to melt the Chocolates in multiple phases, keep in mind that once you have used the oven to heat the chocolates, next round of heating the Chocolates will take lesser time.
  4. Always use separate bowls to melt each type of Chocolates (Dark, White, Milk) since each of these types of Chocolates can take different amounts of time to melt as noted above.
  5. When adding essence to the Chocolates (like Orange, Coffee, Mint, Butterscotch essence) always use oil based essence. The water based essences spoil the chocolates and you cannot preserve the Chocolates for larger number of days without degradation of quality.
  6. By reading the above instructions, it should be clear now that the Chocolates should be always kept free from water, humidity and moisture. Hence during Double Boiling method of melting chocolates, care should be taken to prevent steam from coming in contact with the chocolates and spoiling the same.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Can you let me know whether we can use aluminium vessel to melt choclate? Aluminium heats faster than steel so there will be saving on LPG Usage. Also what is the quantity of chocolate that can be melted in double boiler?

    • I didn’t use the aluminium vessel, as the chocolate sticks to the pan and you need to scrape it. Aluminium is not good for health too. You can use glass bowl instead. Using glass bowl helps a lot to remove the excess Chocolate in it.

      About the Chocolate quantity, it again depends on your vessel or glass bowl, if you take a bigger size, you can use more than a Cup of chopped Chocolate.

  2. Hiii Hema… if i want to add food colour to white chocolate..
    What should i buy… the powder one… or liquid one ?
    Also… if i need to add mint flavour to dark chocolate…please advice the brand of mint essence…
    Thank you…

    • Sorry for the late reply Niti.

      Always use liquid colours for the Chocolates and Oil based essence, else Chocolate will spoil if you use water based essence. I used “Fab” brand. You can use any good brand but it should be Oil based ones.
      Hope this information helps.

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