Easy Homemade Modeling Chocolate

Expert Tips

• tip 1
  You can use any type of chocolate to make your homemade modeling chocolate, including pure semi-sweet, bittersweet, milk, or white chocolate, which all contain cocoa butter. Or you can use dark, light or white confectionery coating, candy melts or almond bark, which all contain some sort of oil.
• tip 2
  Every type and brand of chocolate contains varying amounts of cocoa butter or oil, which makes giving an exact recipe for modeling chocolate a bit tricky. In general, dark chocolate is more solid than milk or white chocolate and will require more corn syrup. Confectionery coatings are also softer than pure chocolates and may require less corn syrup.
• tip 3
  If you use the microwave to melt your chocolate, add your chocolate to a microwave-safe bowl and heat on high power for short bursts of time. Every microwave is different, so adjust as needed. Generally speaking, you can heat 16 oz. of chocolate on high power for 30 seconds, remove and stir, heat for another 30 seconds, then let the bowl sit in the microwave for a moment, remove and stir. Heat at 10-15 second increments, allowing it to sit for a moment before stirring vigorously. You want to allow the heat from the chocolate to melt the remaining pieces. This will keep your chocolate from getting too hot. If you try to move too quickly, you can easily burn it. And there's nothing you can do with burnt chocolate, aside from tossing it in the trash!
• tip 4
  Is your modeling chocolate greasy? You may have added the corn syrup while the chocolate was too hot. It is very important to allow the chocolate to cool to a temperature of 90-91º, stirring often as it cools so it doesn't harden around the edges of the bowl.
• tip 5
  Don't have a thermometer? Put a drop of chocolate on your lip. You want it to feel slightly cool.
• tip 6
  Incorporate the corn syrup slowly to the chocolate, stirring slowly, until well combined. The chocolate will start to harden almost immediately. You need to make sure the corn syrup is mixed in, but if you mix it too vigorously at this point, again, you may get greasy modeling chocolate.
• tip 7
  After being stored, the modeling chocolate will harden. It's best to break off small pieces and knead them until soft and pliable enough to sculpt, using the warmth from your hands to make the chocolate pliable again. Dark chocolate will harden much more than milk or white. If it is just too hard to knead, you can heat it on the defrost setting in your microwave. Work slowly, breaking off pieces and heating them for 5 seconds at a time, kneading between each heating session. If you overheat the chocolate, you'll end up with greasy modeling chocolate. If during the process of heating it back up, you see that a spot looks greasy, let it sit and cool for about ten minutes before kneading it.