Help! I’m a chocolate melting failure.

[Anonymous]

I am trying to make chocolate truffles. The first part went fine— melted semisweet chocolate with cream, chill, roll into balls, chill. Now I want to coat them in milk chocolate, which I thought I could do by melting milk chocolate chips, but the chocolate won’t melt. I tried doing it over a pan of hot water (not boiling, low and slow). It didn’t melt, just clumped up. So I tried again in the microwave, 30 sec I ds at a time. Again, not really melting. It gets soft, but then it just starts clumping and getting almost dry.
This happened to me last year trying to melt white chocolate.
What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

The brand of chocolate chips makes a huge difference. Any time I try to cheap out, I get the results you mention. Also, the slightest bit of water makes that happen—wet spoon, damp bowl.

[Anonymous]

You can't use chips for this purpose, they're designed not to melt well. You have to get a block of chocolate.

+1 on the note about water, it will make chocolate seize.

[Anonymous]

Don’t use chocolate chips. Use the baking chocolate.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the tips. I had thought I could use the chips for just the coating part. I actually looked for milk chocolate baking bars but couldn’t find any so I bought the ‘best’ brand I could — guittard. Do you have suggestions for milk chocolate good for melting (that I could find in a store tomorrow in the DC area?). Thanks.

[Anonymous]

The stores that have chocolate baking bars right now are the pricey ones - Whole Foods had guitars baking bars yesterday, fresh market had some today.

If you can’t find bars specifically for baking, buy a fancy brand plain milk chocolate bar. I’ve had good luck with Lindt.

[Anonymous]

Chocolate chips have an emulsifier added. It allows the chips to keep their general shape when put into baked goods. But, it also makes them harder to melt.

You want to buy melting chocolate. These come in disks or bars. The ones designed to melt will have no emulsifiers so that they will melt fully.

[Anonymous]

If you use dark chocolate chips they will melt fine. Semi sweet work ok, and milk chocolate melt but are super thick. You need to stir a lot with any. But yes, blocks of chocolate work better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the tips. I had thought I could use the chips for just the coating part. I actually looked for milk chocolate baking bars but couldn’t find any so I bought the ‘best’ brand I could — guittard. Do you have suggestions for milk chocolate good for melting (that I could find in a store tomorrow in the DC area?). Thanks.

You could just buy candy bars (the pur chocolate ones).