The Biggest Mistake You're Making When Melting Chocolate For Fondue

Melting chocolate seems like a simple task. It's easy to melt butter. It's easy to melt cheese. What makes chocolate so different? The answer is chemistry. Besides the typical concerns of overheating and burning, chocolate doesn't play well with water. Just a small amount will bind sugar and cocoa particles together. This results in little clumps of chocolate that will never become that velvety consistency you desire. When your chocolate seizes, you must water down the recipe or start over.

The biggest mistake you can make when melting chocolate for fondue is to contaminate it with water. This could come from your ingredients. Adding juice, liquor, or other water-based ingredients to your chocolate can cause seizing. When melting chocolate, the biggest mistake is not starting with a clean and dry container. If there are droplets of water from washing or condensation created by temperature changes, you will not get good results. 

Two other things can make melting chocolate challenging. As with the clumping that occurs when chocolate seizes, these mistakes could potentially make a batch unusable.

First, don't melt chocolate at a high temperature. It doesn't matter if you are heating with a double boiler on the stovetop or using a microwave. To get the best results, patience is a necessity. With a double boiler, you want the water hot but not boiling or even simmering. The microwave, however, can turn on you in seconds, and the cooking process continues after it turns off. To melt chocolate in the microwave, it's best to do it in 15-second increments to reduce the chance of scorching.

The second mistake is not stirring. You have to stir melting chocolate — a lot. In any cooking situation, the sides and bottom heat up more quickly than the center. To keep from scorching those areas, stir the chocolate to distribute the heat as evenly as possible.