FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Keeping chocolate shiny

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> wrote:
> I like to melt semi-sweet chocolate chips and dip my biscotti in it.
> But after the chocolate dries - the chocolate looks pasty white -
> almost chalky. What can I add to the chocolate to keep shiny after it
> dries? Someone mentioned cream . . .

If you add cream you will be making a ganache (not 100% sure of that
spelling), which is fine, but if you just want a chocolate coating
then you have to either stop breaking the temper on your chocolate
or retemper it after melting.

If you melt the chocolate slowly (like 10 second bursts) in
the microwave and stir a lot between heating, you can melt it
without breaking temper. It's a pretty narrow temperature
range, but it can be done. You want to stay under 90F degrees.
You should have melt around 85F. Depending on the exact
chocolate you are using temper will break somewhere around
92F to 95F.

Making a ganache is OK, too. You control the hardness of
the set there by changing the ratio of chocolate to cream.
More cream means softer, less cream means firmer, but it
will never have that tempered chocolate snap.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.