Here you go, marmalady. Tried many, many times, and true.
Coconut Mounds or Almond Joys
¾ cup light corn syrup
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup water
2 heaping cups of shredded sweetened coconut
Whole almonds
12-16 ounces of a good semisweet chocolate, chopped and tempered ***
Butter the sides of a heavy 2-quart sauce pan. Into the pan, combine the corn syrup, sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.
Attach your candy thermometer to the inside of the pan and cook until the syrup reaches 240 degrees (F). Add the coconut and continue cooking, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, until the mixture reaches 248 degrees (F).
Remove from heat and pour the mixture into a heatproof bowl and set it aside to cool completely. This will take about 4 hours and leave it alone. At this point, you can refrigerate the candy for another 2 hours or so to make it easier to handle and shape.
Butter a large cookie sheet and line it with waxed paper. Butter the paper and set the sheet aside.
Using your very clean hands, pinch off a tablespoon or so of the mixture and shape it into a small rectangle. I make mind about 1-inch wide by 2-inches long. Repeat shaping the candy and set each aside on the waxed paper with the remaining mixture.
For Almond Joy candies, press one or two whole almonds into the top of the candies, slightly imbedding them in the coconut. (I do this individually as I shape each candy, so as not to distort the rectangular shape.)
*** Melt and temper your chocolate. However, if you don’t keep high-quality chocolate on hand, you can substitute a 12-ounce bag of Hershey’s Chocolate Chips, but don’t tell anyone I told you to do this! (I sure hope jasonr doesn’t read this…!)
This is how I typically temper chocolate and find it the easiest method of all:
Place your chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips) into the top of a double boiler.
Fill bottom of double boiler so the hot water does not touch the bottom of the upper pan. Do not let the water boil. Stir the chocolate while melting to ensure even heating, but do so slowly and gently, trying to avoid creating air bubbles. Heat the chocolate to 120 degrees (F) to 122 degrees (F).
Replace the hot water in the bottom of the double boiler with 70-degree (F) water, but no cooler than that. Stir until the chocolate cools to between 79 degrees and 80 degrees. It may occasionally be necessary to add additional cool water to the bottom of the double boiler.
Now replace the 70 degree water with warm water (about 90-95 degrees) and raise the temperature of the chocolate to between 88 and 89 degrees for dark chocolate, or between 84 and 86 degrees for milk chocolate. Maintain this temperature while dipping. If the chocolate exceeds 90 F., it will be necessary to repeat the tempering process.
I dip candies using my clean hands. Alternatively, you can use a fork – place a candy onto the fork and dip into the chocolate then lift out and rake against the edge of the chocolate bowl to remove the excess from the bottom of the fork. Then carefully slide the candy off of the fork and back onto the cookie sheet to harden.
Allow the dipped candies to rest at room temperature for 4 hours for the chocolate to harden. Store in an airtight container in layers, separated by waxed paper, at room temperature for up to 1 week, in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.