Becky asks: During the holidays I played around with white chocolate to make a variety of flavored barks. One thing that I ALWAYS had problems with was after melting my white chocolate, when I added my flavoring/extract, it always seized. I rescued it with butter, but I’ve read where so many other people were able to just add extracts without the added fat with no problems. I used both more expensive white chocolate like Ghirardelli, Hershey/Nestle brands, and even the Wilton melting white chocolate disks, all yielded the same results. What the heck am I doing wrong?!?
Baking S.O.S. says: I have had the same experience–usually when trying to add coloring (rather than flavoring) to white chocolate or white candy coating.
I think the problem is that white “chocolate” has far less cocoa butter in it than regular chocolate does, and without that extra fat from the cocoa butter, it simply doesn’t melt as well. Adding extra fat–such as the butter you used (I like to use vegetable shortening for a color-less and flavor-less fat) gives the white chocolate or white disks enough fat to help it melt properly without seizing up.
Another good thing to note is that many of the supposed white chocolate chips on the market do not actually contain ANY cocoa butter at all, so in fact, they are not actually chocolate! You may notice that manufactures of white “chocolate” chips have recently changed their labeling to call the products simply “white chips” or “vanilla chips.” These products, too, do not have enough fat in them to prevent them from seizing up when melted and coloring or flavoring is added.
I checked the instructions on the back of the Wilton white candy disks bag, and the instructions suggest that you should use an oil-based coloring or flavoring agent. So perhaps you might want to try an oil rather than an extract to add flavor to the white chips/disks.
Good luck!
Leave a Reply