Awhile ago, my husband and I attended a chocolate tasting class at a local store that boasts one of the largest selections of chocolate varieties in the world. One thing that I was a little disappointed to find out was that the fine chocolate was only in bar form. I am not saying that it is bad. I am saying that I love chocolate dipped fruit, chocolate cheesecake, peanut butter cups, smores, chocolate chip cookies and a wide variety of other concoctions. Perhaps these items are located somewhere and made out of this fine chocolate, but I doubt it. The chocolate bars for sale at our class ranged from probably $4.00 to $10.00. We were told that most producers of fine chocolate do not make a lot of money due to the expense of the product and process. So I really doubt I would find fine chocolate candy and I decided to try my own.
I purchased some low end fine chocolate to start this experiment. I also found a gadget specifically for melting chocolate, the Chocolate Pro. Now I am not a person that believes in having a kitchen full of gadgets and I purchased the Chocolate Pro thinking this was possibly a very ridiculous purchase. I was very wrong. The entire process was twice as easy with this little gadget. The Chocolate Pro is similar to a crock pot that has an outer heater and an inner liner. The inner liner has a handle and a spout that makes pouring chocolate into molds very easy. If you are working with chocolate candy or layers, the warmer comes with a warm setting which helps to keep the chocolate warm in between uses. I have played with double boilers in the past and I think that I burn the chocolate about half the time.
I made peanut butter cups for my first try. No recipe other than peanut butter plus chocolate. I purchased some molds from Amazon.com to use for this purpose. The rest is pretty easy. Pour the first layer of chocolate. Then use a small paint brush to paint the sides of the mold with the chocolate. It is probably best to let the first layer cool at this point. I then used a cake icing bag to place peanut butter inside the peanut butter cups. Pour the remaining chocolate on top and your done.
Make some heart shaped ones for Valentine’s Day…
