We're going to start off today with just some Wilton candy melts because they're the most
common ones available.
Let's pop some of those on to our bowl.
Alright, so my hot water is now boiling.
Before I put in my candy melts, I'm going to take some shortening.
And I like to put in my shortening about a tablespoon or so at a time.
But like I said, there's no real exact measurement because in my experience, I seem to get different
results out of different bags and different brands of your different candy melts.
So I'm just going to take some of that shortening and I'm going to pop it into a bowl.
And once that's completely melted, which shouldn't take long, we'll turn that heat off and we'll
add our candy melts.
Alright, so you know that your shortening is done when it's completely clear, so regardless
of what color it starts at, whether it's clear or whether it's white, once it's melted, it
should be completely clear.
So I'm going to turn my burner off now, completely off because I want to just control how much
heat I've got in that bowl.
I'm going to get my spoon ready and I'm going to put about half of my bag of my candy melts
in.
Perfect!
So now I'm just going to grab a cloth.
Be careful of those stainless steel bowls because they can be quite warm and I'm just
going to stir.
As you're stirring, these candy melts are going to melt and that shortening is going
to help them because there's going to be a bit of heat in the shortening but chocolate
and candy melts both melt on agitation so if you don't keep them moving, it takes them
a little bit longer to melt.
Beautiful!
So that's done and if you have a look as it comes off the spoon, look how beautiful and
fluid that is.
You're going to have absolutely no problems dipping your candy melts or piping that or
whatever you want to do with it.
You do want to be careful not to over add your shortening.
If you add too much shortening and it is a little bit of a by eye thing, you want it
to be the consistency that you can work with but if you think it can make your life easier
by making it super super thin in getting a little more mileage out of your chocolate,
what you'll actually end up with is chocolate that's too thin and you'll be able to see
the cake pop through it.
So you'll get the discoloration of your chocolate cake pop peering out through the color of
your candy melt.
You don't want that.
Alright, so that's your candy melts done.
Now whenever I'm dipping cake pops, I always put them in quite a narrow and tall container
as you would have seen on a lot of my videos which makes it just really easy to be able
to dip your cake pops so you can get them in and out with no problems.
If you're not going to use those straightaway or if you've got any leftovers, I always recommend
storing them in zip lock bags.
Zip lock bags are fabulous because you can just pour it straight in, you flatten it out
so it almost becomes like candy melt bar and seal it up.
It keeps it away from the air because you do want your chocolate to be kept away from
the air.
The air will eventually dry it out after a week or so and it will make it stale but it
also affects the taste.
You want to seal that bag up.
You want to flatten your chocolate out and pop it on the card board and it's ready for
you to melt another day.
Alright, so I brought that water right back up to the boil again.
And I'm going to show you the difference between the candy melts with shortening and the candy
melts with no shortening so that you know exactly what I mean when I say thicker and
thinner and you'll be able to see exactly the difference in the consistency from that
sneaky shortening tip.
The water is boiling so once again I'm going to turn that stove right off and in go the
rest of our candy melts.
Not only do they not melt as fast because they don't have that additional heat in the
shortening, there's also a little bit more risk that they're going to burn here because
the shortening for some reason, and I have no idea why, seems to protect them from burning
both in the microwave and when you melt them in the pan.
Alright, so the second bowl has melted.
And to the naked eye, it looks like it's melted just fine.
So you can look at that there and that's not too bad.
It's not too bad.
If I tip the spoon, kind of falls off in, I guess, little chunks or little globs...
sort of.
So it is definitely thicker.
It still looks melted.
But if you ever dip a cake pop into that, it's probably going to dip but there's a good
chance that the thickness of that candy melt is actually going to suck the cake pop off
your cake pop stick and it's not going to work how you wanted it to.
Going back to our initial one that has the shortening in it, you can see there just a
difference in even just stirring it but as I lift it out the fluidity of which, it comes
straight off that spoon.
To the naked eye not such a difference but when you've got the 2 of them side by side
and when you're making a lot of cake pops that shortening makes all the difference.
So that sums up how you're going to get your candy melts to that beautiful, smooth, dipping
consistency for your cake pops.
So let's get that water boiling again and I'm going to show you how to melt and color
white chocolate.