Chocolate dipped apples?

Chocolate Covered Apples

Recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence

Yield

6 apples

CloseTimes:Prep15 min Inactive Prep1 hr 0 min Cook

Ingredients

6 medium sweet-tart apples, such as Braeburn, Fuji, or Gala

Popsicle sticks

1 pound semisweet chocolate, cut into chunks

1 cup M & M's, chopped pistachios, shredded coconut, toffee pieces, or crushed Oreos

Directions

Twist off the stems from the apples and push a Popsicle stick down into the core. Put the apples in the fridge while preparing the chocolate; they'll coat better if they're cold.

Slowly melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot water or in a microwave set on high for 2 minutes, stirring halfway through the heating time to smooth it out. Remove from the heat and stir until completely melted and warm, not hot. Dunk each apple into the chocolate, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Roll the apples around in the chocolate, turning with the stick, so it's coated all the way up to the top. Use a spoon to baste any hard to get spots.

Put the desired coating in a separate bowl and roll the dipped apple around so it is completely covered. Set the chocolate dipped apples on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Refrigerate until the chocolate is set.

Hope this answers your questions. Have a wonderful WEDDING! Congratulations.

Get some good Lindt brand chocolate. Hersey's has changed their recipe lately and it doesn't rework so well.

Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a well-cleaned, grease-free, BONE DRY glass bowl. The bone dry is important because a drop of water will bind or clump up your chocolate.

Put the bowl in the microwave and heat it for 15 second intervals. After each interval, check the chocolate by poking a piece. It should hold its shape and still be soft.

Take the bowl out and with a rubber spatula, begin to fold the chocolate until it gets glossy again and smooth. The tempering will take about 2 - 5 minutes depending on how much chocolate you use. That is tempered chocolate.

heating cocoa butter to form chocoalate is called tempering. Uncontrolled crystallization of cocoa butter typically results in crystals of varying size, some or all large enough to be clearly seen with the naked eye. This causes the surface of the chocolate to appear mottled and matte, and causes the chocolate to crumble rather than snap when broken. The uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate are the result of consistently small cocoa butter crystals produced by the tempering process.

The fats in cocoa butter can crystallize in six different forms. The primary purpose of tempering is to assure that only the best form is present. The six different crystal forms have different properties.

Crystal Melting Temp. Notes

I 17 °C (63 °F) Soft, crumbly, melts too easily.

II 21 °C (70 °F) Soft, crumbly, melts too easily.

III 26 °C (78 °F) Firm, poor snap, melts too easily.

IV 28 °C (82 °F) Firm, good snap, melts too easily.

V 34 °C (94 °F) Glossy, firm, best snap, melts near body temperature (37 °C).

VI 36 °C (97 °F) Hard, takes weeks to form.

Making chocolate considered "good" is about forming as many type V crystals as possible. This provides the best appearance and texture and creates the most stable crystals so the texture and appearance will not degrade over time. To accomplish this, the temperature is carefully manipulated during the crystallization.

Generally, the chocolate is first heated to 45 °C (115 °F) to melt all six forms of crystals.[43] Next, the chocolate is cooled to about 27 °C (80 °F), which will allow crystal types IV and V to form. At this temperature, the chocolate is agitated to create many small crystal "seeds" which will serve as nuclei to create small crystals in the chocolate. The chocolate is then heated to about 31 °C (88 °F) to eliminate any type IV crystals, leaving just type V. After this point, any excessive heating of the chocolate will destroy the temper and this process will have to be repeated. However, there are other methods of chocolate tempering used. The most common variant is introducing already tempered, solid "seed" chocolate. The temper of chocolate can be measured with a chocolate temper meter to ensure accuracy and consistency. A sample cup is filled with the chocolate and placed in the unit which then displays or prints the results.

Two classic ways of manually tempering chocolate are:

* Working the molten chocolate on a heat-absorbing surface, such as a stone slab, until thickening indicates the presence of sufficient crystal "seeds"; the chocolate is then gently warmed to working temperature.

* Stirring solid chocolate into molten chocolate to "inoculate" the liquid chocolate with crystals (this method uses the already formed crystal of the solid chocolate to "seed" the molten chocolate).

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For Chocolate Apples you can use any type of chocolate. just dont melt is using direct heat. melt it slowly over a doubble boiler for best results.

tempering is a process thats not easy, I would practice if I were you on maybe strawberries or something smaller. To make them shine you a good butter. But google tempering or watch a video on how to do it on youtube.