Molded Chocolate

Everyone loves chocolate. This is one of the reasons why it makes such a great gift, and makes for great DIY wedding favors! Plus, it has a lot of versatility to it. You can use milk chocolate, dark chocolate or even white chocolate. You can even enhance your basic chocolate to suit your preferences, like adding nuts or rice puffs for a twist. Also, white chocolate can be colored to create rich details on your finished product.

Ingredients:
Chocolate of Choice
Nuts/rice puffs/ dried fruit
Food coloring if using white chocolate
Additional candy flavorings, if desired

Tools:
Candy Chocolate mold
Double boiler or glass mixing bowl that fits over a pot
New art brushes if using different colored chocolates for detailing

Directions:
For the Regular Molded Chocolate

• Cut up your chocolate of choice into chunks, to make it easier for you to melt them.
• Put your chocolate into your double boiler and stir constantly until melted.
• Add in flavoring and food coloring, if using any.
• Mix in your add-ons (nuts, rice puffs, dried fruit.)
• Pour into molds and let cool.
• To remove from the mold, gently tap off molds once the chocolate has hardened.

For the Decorated Molded Chocolate

• Cut up white chocolate into chunks, to make it easier for you to melt them.
• Put your chocolate into your double boiler and stir constantly until melted.
• Divide white chocolate into separate containers and add a different food color and/or flavor to each one.
• Using a clean art brush, paint on the details in your chocolate candy mold using the colored chocolate. Set aside to dry.
• Pour in the rest of the chocolate once colored details have set.
• To remove from the mold, gently tap off molds once the chocolate candy has hardened.

Tips:

• If you cannot find candy molds, keep in mind that there are a lot of substitutes that you can use. You can shape your chocolate into bars or even into mini cupcakes. You can use tiny cupcake pans with liners. Pour your chocolates into the liners and let them set in the pans. You can also create chocolate candy lollipops with special molds.
• If the chocolate you are using failed to set properly or hardened before you were able to put them in their molds, just heat it up again in your double boiler.
• You can wrap up your chocolates in clear cellophane or put them in favor boxes. Add a ribbon and tag to customize it.
• DO NOT add water to your chocolate at any time or under any circumstance. This will mess up your mixture and make it clumpy.
• To melt chocolate faster, you can use a microwave or an oven.
• To put chocolate into your molds easily and quickly, you can either spoon your chocolate into the molds or use a squeeze bottle, depending on what you have in your chocolate mixture.
• Clean up the edges of your molds so that you don’t have any excess pieces protruding from your chocolates after they’ve set.
• When using chocolate molded into tiny cupcake tins, you can layer your chocolate one flavor or color after another. You can also add a filling or a fruit inside your chocolate cupcake.

Next Article: DIY Wedding Favors: Chocolate Ganache Truffles