I am by NO means a chocolatier – unless, of course, eating a lot of chocolate qualifies you as some sort of expert. But I doubt it.
This morning Lily, my stepmom and myself tried our hand at some Easter candy making and I have to say – they didn’t turn out half bad! I picked up some Wilton Candy Melts along with sticks and candy molds at AC Moore yesterday.
You can select from an array of chocolate colors and flavors – we opted for white chocolate, dark mint chocolate and regular old milk chocolate.
I melted my chocolate in a pyrex dish in the microwave, which is messy, but simple enough. I am leaning towards purchasing a Wilton Chocolate Pro Electric Melting Pot – that should take my candy making to the next level and eliminate the need for the microwave.
Making these meant a lot of hopping back and forth from the counter to the microwave, all the while stirring chocolate to keep it from hardening and cooling. So I wasn’t able to get any pics of the process itself – but it’s ridiculously simple:
- Melt chocolate in 15 second intervals in the microwave (stirring chips every 15 seconds until chocolate is melted and smooth)
- Pour melted chocolate into molds. Add lollipop stick if desired.
- Allow chocolate to set on the counter or pop into the freezer to speed up the process. (I let the mold sit on the counter for about 5 minutes before moving it to the freezer for 10-15 minutes.)
- Pop candy out of molds.
- Package as desired.
- Store in cool, dry area.
We made pops for each of Lily’s fellow preschoolers and then for the big finale made her teacher and teacher’s assistant a BIG chocolate bunny. For kicks we threw some mini M&Ms onto the bunny and the end results were great. I wish I had had Easter colored M&Ms to use, but I worked with what I had on hand. 🙂
