Baking 101: How to melt chocolate on a double boiler #SusanEats

spatula chocolate

Photo credit: Pedro Ramirez Paz

Baking is a science. When you get down to it, baking is all about the chemical reactions that occur from mixing different ingredients together, adding heat and waiting for your experiment to come out of the oven a masterpiece.  It’s simple, really, mix, whisk, whip, fold, pour, bake, eat! But we’ve all had those times when everything seems perfect when the pan goes into the oven, but when it comes out, it’s a total disaster. What went wrong? Well, we’re here to answer your questions and provide you with tips and techniques to guarantee success every time you turn on the oven.

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For the first installment of our Tips and Techniques webseries, we’re showing you how to melt chocolate on a double boiler. Chocolate is a fussy ingredient that requires careful attention, especially when adding heat. You can create a double boiler by placing a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water, allowing you toregulate the heat that melts your chocolate. You need this control because overheating will cause it to stiffen and clump, which is problematic since we want our chocolate to be smooth and glossy. Also be sure to keep water away from the chocolate, because even the tiniest drop will cause the chocolate to seize, becoming grainy and unusable.

Check back next week for more baking ideas from our kitchen to yours!

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