Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started in Chocolate

If you want to try your hand at making chocolates as a business or just as gifts for Christmas, this article will outline the basic equipment that you need.

For your convenience, we have indicated all the products available through Keylink in orange (these will take you directly to the products listed) and you can browse through them in the Shopping Area of our website or in our catalogue on the pages indicated.

[EI = Essential Ingredient, PS = Packaging Solutions]

Working with Chocolate

Tempering

Unless you are happy to use compound chocolate (which doesn’t taste as good as real chocolate but doesn’t need tempering), you will first need to temper your chocolate. This is the process whereby you ensure that your chocolate is glossy with a good snap and that trademark melt-in-the-mouth texture!

See Instructional Video on Tempering Chocolate.

Moulding & Filling

As with tempering, there are certain techniques employed during the moulding, filling or closing processes that help to ensure that your product turns out exactly as you expect.

In general, we would highly recommend that you attend a basic chocolate-making course or at the very least consult a good book on chocolate work! We can recommend a course for you or alternatively we do offer a number of excellent books such as:

See Instructional Videos on Working with Moulds and Filling and Closing.

Basic Equipment & Accessories

All you really need to get started is any microwaveable plastic bowl in which to melt/temper your chocolate and a spatula to stir it. You could instead use a bain-marie and if you would like to read more about our range of KeyChoc small equipment for chocolate work, just click here.

Other items that always come in useful whatever you’re doing are a digital probe thermometer and a mould-scraper. Palette knives can also come in handy. (See pages 84-89 of EI)

You will then need certain additional items depending on what you would like to make. See below.

Making Chocolate Figures and Bars

Making hollow or solid chocolate figures or chocolate bars requires the use of moulds. We offer a great selection of praline, figure, relief, lollipop and bar moulds from Cacao Barry (See pages 92-96 of EI). We also stock special lollipop moulds from Chocoprint which allow you to very easily print colourful pictures on to one face of the lollipop using transfer sheets (See page 97 of EI).

See Instructional Video on Working with Moulds.

Making Pralines and Truffles

Pralines and truffles differ from chocolate figures and bars in that they require an outer shell as well as a filling.

The easiest and most convenient way to obtain the outer shell for either of these types of chocolate is simply to buy them pre-formed. We offer a wide selection of hollow truffle spheres as well as hollow cups (See pages 28-31 of EI).

Usually it is the filling which really determines how good your chocolates taste and so here you have a number of options:

Make your own ganache from scratch using chocolate and cream (see page 22 of EI) and/or fruit purée if desired (see pages 32-33 of EI), and then flavour it with a fruit or flavour paste (See pages 36-37 of EI), essential oils and flavour drops (see pages 38-39 of EI) or anything else you can think of!
Buy a ready-made ganache (See page 22 of EI) and then flavour it as you want, or
Buy a ready-to-use filling (See pages 21-26 of EI) such as a hazelnut praline or crème à la carte (See page 22 of EI).

You will then have to use some tempered chocolate to close the truffle or praline and decorate as required. (See pages 56-59 & 64-65 of EI for décor ideas)

The only additional equipment you will need for making truffles or pralines is a piping bag or a trigger/piston funnel, PVC sheets and dipping forks to help with dipping/decorating the truffles. (See pages 84-89 of EI). You could also use transfer sheets (See pages 66-72 of EI) to decorate the base of your pralines.

See Instructional Videos on Filling and Closing and Making a Ganache.

Chocolate

Finally, there is the chocolate itself! If you wish to go a little beyond the standard grades, we have a fantastic selection of speciality chocolates including single origin, coloured and flavoured, organic, Fairtrade and ‘no added sugar’ chocolate. (See pages 8-20 of EI)

See Instructional Video on Understanding Chocolate.

Packaging

Once you’ve made your chocolates, you still need something to put them in, especially if they are intended as gifts or for sale. Keylink offers the largest range of stock confectionery packaging in the UK, including foil, ballotins, gift boxes, hard-bottom bags, ribbons and even postal boxes. (See Packaging Solutions)

See Instructional Video on Packaging and Presentation.

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