Melting Chocolate

Melting Chocolate

Melting chocolate is a fairly easy process if you have a microwave oven. Just be sure the dish you use to melt the chocolate in is absolutely dry, because the chocolate will turn into a hard, grainy lump if even a drop of water gets into the chocolate. This method will work for quantities of one ounce or more. Chop the desired amount of chocolate and place it in a glass dish. Microwave the chocolate, uncovered, for 45 seconds. Remove the dish and check to see that most, but not all, of the chocolate has melted. If most of the chocolate is still solid, return the dish to the microwave oven for another 30 seconds and check it again. When most of the chocolate has been melted, use a small whisk to stir the chocolate until all of the lumps melt. Chocolate burns very easily, so you don’t want to try to totally melt the chocolate in the microwave.

White chocolate needs to be handled more carefully than any other chocolate, because it melts at a lower temperature and burns very easily. To melt white chocolate, bring a kettle of water to boil. Set a wide metal bowl into a baking dish large enough to hold it. Place the white chocolate, broken or chopped into small bits, into the bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and pour as much boiling water into the baking dish as possible. Let the bowl of white chocolate remain in the hot water for 5 or 10 minutes, then remove it, pull back the plastic wrap, being careful not to get even one drop of water in the chocolate, and stir with a rubber spatula until all of the chunks of chocolate have melted and the chocolate is very smooth. If necessary, tightly re-wrap the bowl and place it back into the hot water for a few more minutes to further melt the chunks.