Tutorial: how to make your own chocolates {from me to you}

I could eat chocolate everyday (and I probably do), but last month I actually made chocolates myself. If you would like to try and make your own chocolates I've put together a tutorial for you.

I have made chocolates before (read: I melted chocolate and poured it into empty advent calendar moulds), but the most difficult part is to make them shine. Usually by the next day my chocolates - if there were any left - looked spotted.  Apparently the key to making the chocolate shine is all in how you heat your chocolate. The fancy word for it is 'tempering'.

So I did some research on how to temper chocolate and photographed my attempt at mastering the art of making shiny chocolates!

Here's the silicone mould I used for my daughter's Alice in Wonderland birthday party:

And here's how to make your own shiny chocolates:

What you need:

• chocolate in the flavour of your choice (use chocolate bars, not chocolate chips)
  my mould gave me an idea of how much chocolate I would need since it had specifications on the back on how much each chocolate would weigh
  200 grams is a nice amount to start with
• a silicone mould
• a food thermometer
• a saucepan
• a glass bowl that fits within the saucepan (stainless steel will work too)



Two things are very important here:

1. Make sure that NO water gets into your bowl of chocolate. Even just a tiny drop will turn your chocolate in a lumpy mess (if it does happen: make yourself a cup of hot cholate with it and start again).
2. Stir, stir, stir. And when you think you're done stirring, stir a little more.

Short recap: no water, plenty of stirring. Let's begin:

• Add a little water to your saucepan (2 or 3 cm is fine) and put the heat on low. 
• Divide your chocolate into 4 parts: 3 parts to melt and 1 part to add later so you can make the temperature drop. 
• Put your bowl of chopped up chocolate inside the saucepan and when the chocolate starts to melt you can begin stirring.

• Heat your chocolate to about 45°C. This is where the food thermometer comes in :). You can start stirring as soon as about half of the chocolate has melted.
• Once you hit 45°C, take your bowl out of the saucepan. Be careful not to get any water in your chocolate!
• Now add that last part of chocolate to make the temperature drop.
  If you are using milk chocolate your ideal temperature will be 31°C. If you use white chocolate 29°C and for pure, dark chocolate 32°C. Remember to stir.

• This part is optional: I added some white detail to my chocolates. Just dip a wooden skewer into the chocolate and slowly and carefully fill in the parts that you want to emphasize.

Here's a close-up of the detailing I did (my mould seemed to attract a lot of dust. I swear I washed it before I used it!)

• Afterwards, fill in your moulds with your melted chocolate. I used a spoon and let the chocolate simply drip into the mould. The cleaner you work the nicer your chocolate will look once you take them out. Though, you can always break off the excess chocolate after they have hardened.

• Pop them in the fridge for about half an hour.

Mine came out looking like this, not bad for a first attempt at tempering chocolate I would say!