Our Favorite Southern Candy

Have you made chocolate candy only to have it not harden properly, taste grainy, be lumpy, or not have the chocolate flavor you are craving? Perhaps your technique or choice of chocolate is to blame.

Your choice of chocolate will determine the flavor of your finished product and how it performs during the process. Most people think these two factors have nothing to do with each other – not so!

Your choice of chocolate must be more than just according to taste preference or ease of use. You must learn to read labels and think about how fussy you are about the results. For example, if you simply want to melt some chocolate and dip strawberries into it as a fun project to share with your child, any chocolate might do. But if you want the crispness and shine that only the best chocolate, properly handled, can give you in order to impress your dinner guests, you have to give care and attention to every step.

Faced with numerous choices, how do you choose? To me, there is no choice: I use bittersweet or semisweet chocolate in all my chocolate candy making and some white chocolate just for contrast in decorating. You can also use bitter baking chocolate, but sugar must be added for sweetness. This is a step I like to avoid for pure laziness sake.

The most important differences between chocolate chips, bitter, sweet, milk, and white chocolate are in the amounts of cocoa butter and chocolate liquor. These two ingredients affect your results. Unless a chocolate candy recipe specifies which to use, you’re on your own. Trial and experimentation may be your only way of determining for yourself which you like best. Be brave; as I like to say, there’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ truffle!

Bitter (unsweetened) baking chocolate is made from pure chocolate liquor. By definition, it must contain 50 to 58% cocoa butter. Here is one place you must check your label because inferior bitter chocolate may contain vegetable oil.

Sweet baking (bittersweet, semisweet) chocolate has sugar added. By definition, sweet chocolate must contain 35 to 50% cocoa butter and can have as little as 15% chocolate liquor.

Milk chocolate contains 10% chocolate liquor and a minimum of 12% milk solids. Why do I never use milk chocolate? Not only because the flavor is a disappointment, but because it is the most fattening chocolate, thanks to all the milk in it. Doesn’t ‘milk solids’ say it all? I imagine it going straight to the thighs! Milk chocolate is rarely used in baking because it is so low in chocolate liquor.

White chocolate contains no chocolate liquor but is made with cocoa butter – usually. Again, read the label and avoid those that use vegetable oil, as it will not perform the same as a product with cocoa butter.

Chocolate chips are to be avoided completely when making chocolate candy, if not completely. It depends on how much you want vegetable oil, stabilizers, and very little cocoa butter. If chocolate chips are the only chocolate you’ve every used in baking and candy making, you have no idea what chocolate candy can really taste and feel like in your mouth.

It’s impossible to describe "performance" in only words, you have to see it to understand it. Since performance is affected by both quality of chocolate and technique, it’s best to start with the best chocolate for the purpose and then follow a few well-thought-out techniques.

If your chocolate candies don’t "feel right" or are grainy or lumpy, and you’ve used good chocolate, chances are your technique needs improving. It’s all in the tempering and the humidity.

Don’t ever try to make chocolate candies on a rainy day; be sure that all of your candy making equipment is totally dry; and if you’re using a double boiler to melt your chocolate, be sure to wipe the bottom of your pan dry before pouring the chocolate.

You know how your chocolate candy bar has that shiny finish and that characteristic ‘snap’ when you bite into it or break it? That’s because it is tempered. When you melt it, it loses its temper, and then you have to put it back in so your candy has that snap and shine.

It’s not hard, you just need a thermometer, or a more expensive tool such as an electric fry pan with a thermostatically controlled heat, or a chocolate tempering machine, which can be quite expensive. However, your chocolate will turn out perfectly tempered each time. The machine melts the chocolate and keeps it at a constant temperature of about 90ºF.

This brings us to where there are two different theories of tempering. Tempering is defined as the heating up to 110 degrees and cooling of chocolate to about 88 degrees. There are those who say you can make perfect chocolate candy every time by never allowing your chocolate to heat past 91 degrees.

This is the trickiest part of making chocolate candy. Your chocolate will cool as you dip, so you need to then heat it back up to 91 degrees. This is why I like to use an electric fry pan.

If by chance your chocolate, despite your utmost care, still gets lumpy or grainy, you can save it by adding solid shortening (not oil or butter) quickly, about two tablespoons per pound of chocolate. But if you’ve chosen the best chocolate and followed these instructions, you should make perfect chocolate candy every time.