In the Chocolate 101 page, I shared my story of how I became involved (temporarily obsessed) with chocolate. There was a somewhat intense period where chocolate occupied pretty much all of my free time. This involved cutting marzipan and lots and lots of dipping for practice.

Years later, I still do a little chocolate work here and there (heh). Every year leading up to the holidays, Megan and I will make these German gingerbread cookies called Printen, and I’ll get in some extra practice hours to maintain my skills. This year we accidentally made around 400 cookies (whooops!) – I definitely got my practice in, enough to film myself 100s of times and get some good shots for a video (see below).

Helpful Tools
1. Dipping forks (I like the ones with a slight offset angle).
2. Thermometer (Infrared/probe).
3. Heat source (Heat gun, microwave, bain marie) to maintain working temperature of chocolate.

Troubleshooting/ FAQs
1. I tempered my chocolate correctly, but it is too thick. What can I do? Choosing the right chocolate is key in dipping chocolate properly in order obtain a coating with the right thickness. If you use Callebaut/Cacao Barry products, they have a droplet system indicating the viscosity of the chocolate. What you need is a 4 or 5 drop to properly dip chocolate.
2. My chocolate is too thick and I don’t use Cacao Barry. Not a problem, add 5% of cocoa butter to the weight of chocolate mass that you will be using to thin out the chocolate mass.