{"id":3538,"date":"2010-02-03T18:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T23:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/?p=3538"},"modified":"2018-01-23T20:46:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T20:46:41","slug":"melting-chocolate-for-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/melting-chocolate-for-valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Melting Chocolate for Valentines Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Rather than buying Valentines Day candy, how about melting chocolate and making your own Valentines Day candy this year? <\/strong><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/gHjNxNZJ3G4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The key to melting chocolate for Valentines Day, Easter candy, chocolate lollipops, or any homemade chocolates is melting chocolate to a precise temperature, called chocolate tempering.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Real chocolate should have four basic ingredients<\/strong>: Cocoa, Cocoa butter, Sugar, and Vanilla. Any chocolate bar that lists things like vegetable oil or palm kernel oil cannot call themselves chocolate. Chocolate for Valentine&#8217;s day candy may also have soy lecithin as an emulsifier, and milk.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18324 alignleft\" style=\"margin: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Theobroma_cacao-frutos.jpeg\" alt=\"Theobroma_cacao-frutos\" width=\"188\" height=\"251\" \/><strong>Chocolate starts out in the seeds of the yellow fruit of the cacao (Ka-Kow) tree<\/strong>. There are about 40 almond-sized beans in each of the cacao fruits. The beans are harvested and treated a lot like coffee. Cacao beans are left in the sun to dry and ferment. They are then crusted, revealing the valuable &#8220;cocoa nib&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-18326\" src=\"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/cacao-beans-in-pod-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"cacao beans in pod\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cocoa nib is further processed into &#8220;chocolate liquor&#8221; <\/strong>(has no alcohol), or &#8220;chocolate mass&#8221;. This the resulting fat or butter from the processing of the nib. This is what gives real chocolate it&#8217;s wonder mouth-feel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Melting chocolate isn&#8217;t as simple as just applying heat and watching it melt.<\/strong> If you&#8217;d like to create your own valentines day candy, then the chocolate needs to be &#8220;tempered&#8221; so it will return to it&#8217;s solid, crisp, shiny state after melting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tempering chocolate is not difficult, but you must contain a lot of caution in melting chocolate this way. <\/strong> There is a slight 10 degree Fahrenheit range to which you must melt the chocolate gently, and then &#8220;seed&#8221; the melted chocolate with cold pieces so that the warm sugar may assume the crystal structure of the cold sugar in the chocolates.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s more fun, and a lot less expensive to make your own Valentines Day Chocolates<\/strong> by learning the correct method to melting chocolate to create your own Valentine&#8217;s Day Candies.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melting chocolate for valentine&#8217;s day candy isn&#8217;t as simple as just melting chocolate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[53],"tags":[133,275,355],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}