Chocolate is chocolate right?  Yes…. and no, but not really no, rather half no!  So that makes it half yes!  Confused?  Let me explain:

There are two main types of chocolate out there; real and confectionery.  In layman’s terms, real chocolate has cocoa butter in it, the other, the cocoa butter has been replaced with a vegetable or palm oil.  Does this change the taste?  Somewhat, but not really. Both are made from the cocoa bean which has been grounded up into cocoa powder, giving it its chocolate taste.

The other real difference is the tempering.  Confectionery chocolate doesn’t need tempering.  Real chocolate, however, needs to be tempered at specific temperatures and cooled back down at specific temperatures, giving it the shiny glaze and a nice snap to it.  If real chocolate isn’t tempered, several things can happen, one, it’ll melt quickly in your hand, two, it’ll look dull and bland, and three, it’ll bloom!  (Bloom!  what’s that?  It’s where the cocoa butter rises on top of the chocolate making it have white streaks or blotches.  It’ll still taste great, but not look so good.)

But not to worry, we’re only dealing with confectionary chocolate on this site, (although I will give tempering info as we go, if you want to use real cocoa butter chocolate).

Below are the three types of chocolate wafers we’ll be using.  You can buy them at any craft store.  The three popular name brands are Merckens, Sweet Tooth Fairy, and Wiltons.  We’ll be using Sweet Tooth Fairy here, but you can use what you like best.