seized chocolate disaster...

[junglekitte]

i found a homemade all natural thin mint recipe off chowhound a while ago and saved the recipe for the future. i decided to make them today. i as i made the chocolate coating it seized... i'm not sure why?! i melted the chocolate chips and added peppermint extract. i used to work in a pastry shop but can't remember if chocolate is salvagable at this point or not. :( and now i have a ton of chocolate wafers with nothing to do with them.

any ideas?

[Kelli2006]

This is the best internet explanation for why chocolate seizes and what to do when it does.

http://www.baking911.com/chocolate/se...

[chefboyardee]

http://www.ehow.com/how_114484_smooth...

might be worth a try, this recipe says that you can unseize it. I was once melting chocolate and it seemed that the butter seperated from the mixture. What happened? Did I overheat the chocolate?

[pescatarian]

I read something that said that anything will make heated chocolate seize and that what you should do when adding anything to melting chocolate, is take out a tiny bit of the melting chocolate and mix it with the other ingredient until it is about the same temperature as the melting chocolate and then add the mixture back to the melted chocolate.

[pescatarian]

I read on the internet that you can either try adding a tablespoon of vegetable shortening per 6 oz of chocolate - or adding hot water or hot milk (doesn't say proportions, but it said that a little bit of liquid makes chocolate seize, a lot of hot liquid makes it more pliable (obviously not too much so that it's watery, so maybe start with 1 tablespoon of hot water?

[Candy]

You cannot unseize chocolate. Once that happens you just have to start over. Sorry. Are you sure there was not even a drop of water lurking in the pan? I feel your pain!

[hrhboo]

You can unseize chocolate, actually. Just add a tablespoon of milk or cream, mix well and reheat. Keep adding a tablespoon at a time until it reaches the desired consistency.