Melting chocolate for Chocolate fudge cake

[Niyagi]

Hi every one

This might be a silly question but I hope someone can clarify it for me

I am planning to make a delicious Chocolate Fudge cake (I hope) for christmas. I understand how the cake has to be made but I had a question about the melting of the chocolate for the fudge itself

For this specific recipe, should I simply melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of boiling water? Without adding any cream or other ingredients?
(To then mix it with the other recips to create the fudge)

Or am I supposed to melt the chocolate in any special way?

+ Is it ok if this is normal milk chocolate or does it have to be dark/pure chocolate?
As you can see, this will be my first time trying this
Any advice or suggestion is highly appreciated !

Niyagi

 

[philso]

Hi,

Generally, you can just melt the chocolate over hot water, let it cool to about body temperature, and then use it in your recipe.

Most recipes call for unsweetened chocolate, also known as baker's chocolate or cacao mass. If you use milk chocolate or other chocolate bars for eating, you will have to adjust your recipe. Even so, the results will invariably be different from the original recipe, mainly heavier and less chocolaty.

As far as I know, milk chocolate can have as little as 10% or 15% chocolate, and about the same amount of milk.
An average chocolate bar might be between about 25% to 50% chocolate, most of the rest being cocoa butter and sugar. So, to get the same chocolate taste, you would have to increase the amount of chocolate and reduce the sugar.
Some chocolate bars have only about 25% sugar or even 15% or 10%. try to find out and do the math yourself.

My personal recommendation would be that, if you can't get baker's chocolate, try to find a chocolate of at least 80% chocolate and avoid milk chocolate.

It would help if you could post your recipe, especially if you have any more questions.

good luck!

 

[Wyogal]

Not knowing your recipe makes it hard to answer...

 

[jasonr]

Whatever you do, don't use a candy bar. This is simply not appropriate for baking. Milk chocolate, as others have pointed out, does not have enough chocolate taste to work and will give you a weak-tasting cake.

Unsweetened (baker's) chocolate is much stronger, but most of the stuff in the supermarket is trash. It's the baking equivalent of that cooking wine they sell in the supermarket. They market it as "baker's" chocolate giving you the impression that it's specially designed for baking. They're just hoping that when you bake it into the cake you won't notice how truly awful it is.

If you want a good cake, see if you can find some premium bittersweet chocolate like Lindt or Valhrona or Ghirardelli. Try to find pure bittersweet, say in the 60% to 80% range. This stuff is widely available, packs a good chocolate punch, and gives you very good quality.

 

[ChefJune]

I hope that you followed the instructions for making the cake, rather than taking each component separately, as you seemed to be doing with the melting of the chocolate.

If you were to add anything to the melting (melted) chocolate, the directions would be in the body of the recipe.

My advice to beginning cooks/bakers (and even to those who are very experienced) is to READ YOUR RECIPE several times before you make your shopping list, and again several times before you make it. It is always good to KNOW what you need, and in what order you are going to do things. Baking (especially) haphazardly can lead to haphazard results. Not what any of us have in mind, I'm sure.