On Apr 8, 1:31 pm, cathy > wrote:
> My brother made macaroons yesterday and wanted to dip them into
> chocolate so he melted some chocolate chips and dipped them into that,
> but of course the chocolate stayed soft. What do you need to do to
> melted chocolate so that it'll harden like a shell after you dip a
> cookie into it?
>
> Cathy


The chocolate needs to be tempered, which requires some precision if
you do it like a professional candy-maker does.

OTOH, I think you can do a poor-man's version of tempering by melting
half the chips, and then stirring in the other half (not melted) until
the whole thing is melted.

Also, you can refrigerate the cookies until the chocolate is set, and
then remove them from the refrigerator. Sometimes this helps and
sometimes it doesn't.

As an adult, I find myself not wanting to use paraffin since it is a
petroleum product, but our parents and grandparents used it to top off
the jelly jars and to make the chocolate harder, and I'd be hard-
pressed to say that it hurt them in any way.

N.