I thought I would make the kids some Christmas Chocolates – like they need more sugar at this time of year ; )
All you need is a few moulds, some melting chocolate (I used milk & white), food colouring (optional) and some caramel for filling (again optional). The moulds I bought (from Spotlight) came with lolly pop sticks!
You don’t have worry if you don’t have a talent for crafts, because, molding chocolate is easy as long as you follow a few basic rules.
You’ll need to keep these rules in mind when you’re working with any type of chocolate:
1. Chocolate Melts best at a low temperature. Don’t allow it to get too hot or it can easily scorch or separate. If you scorch chocolate, you’ll have no choice but to throw it out and start fresh with a new supply.
2. Melt only enough chocolate at one time that you can mold in just a matter of minutes. Once it’s melted, you’ll want to place it into your prepared moles right away. If you wait too long, it will harden.
3. Keep water and other liquids away from the chocolate while it’s melting! Water will cause the chocolate to seize up! You can add a few drops of vegetable oil to remedy the problem, but the taste of the chocolate will be adversely affected.
Now that you know the basics, the rest is pretty easy…
Add about 5cms of water to a saucepan and bring to the boil, turn off the heat and place a glass bowl on top of the pan. Add in the chocolate and stir every minute or so until completely melted.
You can be as complex or as easy as you wish with your chocolates. I did a few versions.
The first was a batch of Green Christmas trees – I just added a few drops of green food colouring to some melted white chocolate. I then added the chocolate to the moulds. Put them in a freezer for 5-10 minutes until set and bang out onto a sheet of glad paper, then into a container in the fridge.
I also did caramel filled chocolates which, again, is pretty easy. You just add a small layer of chocolate to the moulds, then put it in the freezer. When this is set, add the caramel – I just used tinned…(I had a bad experience when I was a kid when Mum was cooking caramel from scratch – the ol carnation milk boiled for 4 hours trick…well poor Mum let it boil dry whilst bathing us…there was an epic explosion and the kitchen roof was covered in caramel..hence the reason I am using tinned ; )
Anyway, after adding the caramel, you add another layer of chocolate to cover the caramel then put in the freezer again for a further 5-10 minutes.
I also did another version..just drizzle the moulds in chocolate (white or milk/dark), put in the freezer to set, then fill with the opposite colour chocolate. It leaves a great ‘tinsel’ effect on the Christmas Trees!
It’s so much fun to play with different types of methods and the kids love them!!
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