Chocolate-Covered Cars

I recently bought the most awesome chocolate tempering unit...

 

Well, do be honest with you, I got this awesome baby for FREE with Dove Chocolate Discoveries hostess rewards.....which is AWESOME in itself!

But since it came last week, I've been CRAZY anxious to use it! It's super cool to be able to temper your chocolate without double boilers, water, candy thermometers, etc. and just let the machine do all the thinkin'.

What is tempering? Tempering is the processing that gives your chocolate candies and treats snap and sheen. If you've ever made chocolate-covered goodies and the chocolate didn't set up, it's probably because your chocolate was not TEMPERED...which involved heating it up to JUST the right temperature, then reintroducing some "seed" chocolate once it's melted (but not TOO hot) to get it get the chocolate to the correct physical structure. Confused on the details? Here's a nice explanation...

My kids are marshmallow HOUNDS...they swipe bags from my pantry if I don't hide them, eat them as snacks and stash extra supplies in their bedrooms. So chocolate-covered marshmallows seemed like a perfect project to take my new tempering machine for a test drive. Plus, I found these hidden in my pantry:

Start by getting out your tempering machine or tempering your chocolate the old-fashioned way...I'll show you how my cool new toy works...

The tempering machine has a bowl divided by a baffle. Turn the machine on and select the type of chocolate you will be melting (dark, milk or white). I chose the dark chocolate. I also prepped my bowl first by rubbing it down (inside only, of course) with a bar of chocolate. Drop the chocolate in behind the baffle...

As the machine heats the bowl and the bowl rotates, the chocolate will start to melt and move to the front of the bowl on the right hand side of the baffle, which has a little gap. There is a scraper on the left hand side of the baffle that scrapes the melted chocolate from the side of the bowl as it comes around and holds it in a pool on the front side of the baffle, so you end up with the melted pool of chocolate up front and the un-melted chocolate still on the back side of the baffle.

Once the chocolate gets to the correct temperature, the machine beeps to tell you it's time to introduce the "seed" chocolate that will reset it's crystal structure. Just drop it in behind the baffle and it will start to melt just like the other chocolate. When the chocolate is correctly tempered, the machine beeps again and you simply remove any remaining unmelted seed chocolate and eat it. Don't be shy! It makes even little boys with crazy bed-heads smile!

Once your chocolate is tempered, it's time to get dipping! You can do a TON of things with tempered chocolate...chocolate-covered strawberries, pretzels, truffles, candy canes, rice crispie treats, etc...The sky is the limit! Like I said, we used Cars-shaped marshmallows. I liked the cool colors, so we only dipped the chocolate up the sides, leaving the top plain. Doesn't the traffic cone look cuter showing a little orange?

 I also got these cool design transfer sheets from Dove with my hostess rewards....

Source: dove-chocolate-discoveries.com via Jane on Pinterest

Can you believe it? The designs are made of COCOA BUTTER!! Just put your chocolate goodies on the transfer sheet after dipping them in the tempered chocolate...

I'm impatient, so after we finished dipping, I popped the tray of marshmallows in the fridge to speed up the process of my chocolate setting up. Once it has, you get these cute little designed transferred to your candies!!

Best of all, they were delicious in addition to being cute, and I can't WAIT to temper chocolate again! My list of to-dos keeps growing! Pretzels, strawberries, truffles, candy canes, cookies......