How To Temper Chocolate the Easy Way

The sheer idea of tempering chocolate can be scary for many inexperienced candy makers. This fear leads many new candy makers to shy away from creating tasty chocolate masterpieces using some of the best melting chocolate available, such as our Merken’s Marquis Milk Chocolate. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With our step-by-step guide, you’ll see how easy this technique can be once you get past your fears.

Using a microwave makes it super easy to temper your chocolate to get it to the perfect consistency, so we’re going to show you how to temper chocolate that way.

For best results, you’ll need a:

• Large microwave-safe bowl
• Melting chocolate
• Spoon
• Chilled bowl
• Immersion blender

Roughly chop your melting chocolate and add the pieces to your microwave-safe bowl. Microwave the chocolate for 20 seconds at a time, stirring well in between each 20-second interval. Keep putting the chocolate back into the microwave until the chocolate is mostly melted but still has some lumps. If you got a little overzealous while heating your chocolate and it all melted, don’t fear: Just add a handful of chocolate pieces to your melted chocolate and stir.

Once your chocolate has gotten to the right consistency, transfer all of it to the chilled bowl and use your immersion blender to smooth out the lumps in your chocolate. Your chocolate will be ready to mold into candy when it dries in less than a minute.

Once your chocolate is ready, ladle it into the candy mold of your choice and create delicious chocolate candies that your family and friends will love.

Are you more of a visual learner? Watch our favorite video to learn how to temper chocolate in the microwave. The video also goes on to show how to mix different colors of chocolate to create beautiful candies.

Have you ever tempered chocolate? Share your tips and tricks with us and other readers in the comments below!

Three Reasons Why You Should Make Your Own Candy

Candy making is a great year-round hobby where you can unleash your creative genius making the perfect sweets for every holiday and event. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and other holidays are just around the corner. While candy makes any day better, you can add a little extra sweetness to your holidays by making your own candy.

Here are three of the best reasons why you should switch over to home candy making for this year’s festivities:

1. There are plenty of easy candy recipes. You might be worried that making your own candy will be too difficult and quickly become a nightmare, but home candy making can be as easy or as hard as you want. Sites like Wilton have a huge variety of recipes that you can sort by difficulty level so you can find the recipe that’s perfect for your skill level.
2. You can control the ingredients. Don’t like nuts? Leave them out. Love peanut butter drops in your candy? Toss some in. When you make candy at home, you get to choose the ingredients so you can make candy that you’ll enjoy. Also, making the candy yourself lets you skip some of those more questionable ingredients. Those chemicals you can’t even pronounce can be left out of your candy, making it just a little better for you.
3. It’s fun! Making your own candy can be a fun activity for the whole family. You can work with kids or loved ones to choose ingredients, break up chocolate, fill candy molds and, of course, enjoy the finished product. There aren’t many things better than sharing homemade candy with someone special, so start planning your candy making adventure today.

Have you tried making your own candy before? How did it turn out? Let us know in the comments!