How to melt chocolate

Melting chocolate is easy and fun, just don’t rush it!  Here’s how to melt chocolate for lovely cakes and sweets…  

You will use a pan of boiling water with a bowl of broken up chocolate sitting on the top.  The steam from the boiling water will heat the bottom of the bowl and melt the chocolate. ALWAYS HAVE A GROWN UP WITH YOU WHEN YOU DO THIS.

Remember the golden rules:

1. Don’t have the heat too high. The water just needs to simmer.

2. Don’t let the water touch the bottom of the bowl.

Equipment you will need:

A small bowl, but it needs to be big enough to hold all the chocolate!

A pan which is the right size for the bowl to sit on top of, without touching the bottom of the pan.

What to do:

1. Break the chocolate into pieces and put them into the bowl.

2. Half fill a pan with water and place onto the hob.  Put the bowl of chocolate onto the pan and make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.  If it does, pour out some of the water and try again.

3. Put the bowl of chocolate to one side.   Heat the water in the pan until it is bubbling (putting a lid on the pan will speed this up).  This means it is boiling.  Turn the heat down until it is just bubbling a little bit.  This is called simmering.

4. Put the bowl of chocolate carefully on to the top of the pan, in place of the pan lid.  Watch while the chocolate starts to melt.

5. It will take a few minutes for the chocolate to melt completely. Stir the chocolate with a wooden spoon to distribute the heat evenly.  Don’t be tempted to turn the heat up to make it melt quicker.    Too much heat will cause the chocolate to go grainy.  Cooks have a strange word to describe this – they say the chocolate has ’seized’ when this happens.  It still tastes okay, but it will not have that lovely smooth texture.

6. When the chocolate is melted, turn off the heat and using oven gloves, lift the bowl of chocolate off the pan.

Lovely Recipes that use melted chocolate:

Freya’s Chocolate Shortbread

Very Easy Chocolate Fudge Cakes

...and a Story that Features Chocolate Cakes!:

Easter Bunnies Steal the Cakes!

Melting Chocolate in the Microwave

You can melt chocolate in the microwave instead.  It’s not really cheating, but you don’t get the same lovely smell in the kitchen.  Just put the chocolate into a large microwavable bowl and then heat on a low power. Keep checking every ten seconds or so, to ensure the chocolate doesn’t get too hot and seize.