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Make Your Own Halloween Candy Bars
Make Your Own Halloween Candy Bars–FAQ
After developing these recipes, we’d say the crucial ingredient to candy making is patience. Here are answers to common chocolate questions.
What’s the trick to achieving a good temper?
The viscosity of the chocolate is key, and if you work with chocolate often, you’ll be able to rely on sight and touch to determine when it has reached perfect temper. When you first try tempering, pay close attention to your thermometer and be sure to hit the exact temperature you are aiming for. Here are some other tips:
1. Work on a cool, dry day. Chocolate behaves best in a room-temperature environment (mid-60s to low 70s) with average humidity (around 50 percent).
2. Read the recipe through completely before you start.
3. Use high-quality ingredients.
4. Have all equipment and ingredients on hand before starting.
5. Give yourself plenty of time; you can’t rush this process.
1. Work on a cool, dry day. Chocolate behaves best in a room-temperature environment (mid-60s to low 70s) with average humidity (around 50 percent).
2. Read the recipe through completely before you start.
3. Use high-quality ingredients.
4. Have all equipment and ingredients on hand before starting.
5. Give yourself plenty of time; you can’t rush this process.
If the chocolate falls out of temper, can you retemper it? Or should you just use it in recipes that don’t require tempering?
As long as the chocolate is clean and has not exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit (see below), it can be retempered over and over again. Be sure to go through the whole process of melting and cooling again, because it’s the only way you can be sure to get good crystallization.
When the chocolate exceeds 120 degrees Fahrenheit, is it truly no longer usable for tempering? How about for use in recipes in which tempering isn’t required?
Somewhere between 120 degrees Fahrenheit and 130 degrees Fahrenheit, chocolate separates and burns. There is nothing you can do to repair burnt chocolate.
What does it mean if your chocolate comes off in one piece (like a shell) as opposed to sticking to the filling?
This happens when the interior (candy center) is too cold and the chocolate sets too fast and cracks. When testing, we found that having the candy centers cold made our candy bars easier to work with. However, the dipping worked best when the filling was only slightly below room temperature, which is why we put the candy centers in the refrigerator and not the freezer. If you freeze the filling, the chocolate coating will set too quickly and the interior will form condensation, eventually pushing the chocolate coating off.
With that much time and love put into making your own candy... I would save it for friends and family too. -Not to mention I wouldnt let my little one eat anything homemade unless I knew the person
I'm surprised that in this sad world, no one has made a comment that any parent would just throw away any home made item on Halloween. Perhaps these are just meant for personal consumption and friends, not trick or treaters ringing your doorbell.
@pmigrn--Commodity chocolate is cheap chocolate so it needs cheap labor, look at the small artisan chocolate makers who pay top dollar for the beans they use. If we pay the real cost for the food (chocolate) we eat we are paying living wages to the farmers.
There's a quota on how much chocolate to eat in a month??!? Who knew...
Check this out http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/ She just posted Homemade Almond Joys today. They look really easy and really good.
Chocolate is an amazing food and I really love it. It is just such a big shame that there is a bitter truth about most chocolate.
In fact the truth is so bitter, I stopped eating chocolate that does not explicitely states that it is produced without child labor and slavery : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcMn6mEwU_8
Those look great! The lables are cool too. I think that I have already had my quota for chocolate this month. I would have rather had some of this though.
Professor, could you share your recipe/directions for Chunkies? I've only ever had the current version (just once or twice) and remember thinking it could be so much better - your version sounds like the answer!
This seems like a good idea, but speaking from experience in caramel making... all of the caramel in these pictures is waaay underdone. I learned the hard way that if you get scared and pull your sugar off the stove too soon you are left with a bland, pale caramel.
I'll have to try these!
I have been making my own home-made version of the classic CHUNKY bar for years.
Many years ago, the CHUNKY was made with a good dose of cashews and raisins. Probably around the time Nestle acquired the brand they changed it considerably...the chocolate itself seemed marginally improved, but gone were the cashews, substituted by a stingy hint of crushed peanuts... and...+READ
I'll have to try these!
I have been making my own home-made version of the classic CHUNKY bar for years.
Many years ago, the CHUNKY was made with a good dose of cashews and raisins. Probably around the time Nestle acquired the brand they changed it considerably...the chocolate itself seemed marginally improved, but gone were the cashews, substituted by a stingy hint of crushed peanuts... and even the raisins were cut back considerably. With the CHUNKY being a shadow of its former self, the only solution was to make them the way I remembered loving them. They are always a big hit.-COLLAPSE
I THINK THAT THIS I A COOL AND I THINK THAT IF I HAD THE CHOICE I WOULD DO ALL OF THEM.
In the Halloween candy department, I just wrote 'Giant Sewer Rats, Severed Chocolate Fingers: Halloween Candy Collection at Hope and Greenwood, London' on 'Serge the Concierge'
Here's the link
http://www.sergetheconcierge.com/2008/10/giant-sewer-rat.html
Serge
'The French Guy from New Jersey'
is it just me, or is this article emitting the scent of déjà vu?
NOM!
my kids just seen these(all teenagers) and say we gotta make them .Like it will be them doing any of it except the eating of course
I have a feeling I am in a whole world of trouble!
These look truly delicious. I've never thought about making candy bars myself, but I will now. I love the rollover cross-section comparisons between the factory made candy and the hand-made one.
sounds awesome as hell i love it now your talking something good and sweet