DIY Chocolates

The OOT Bags are coming together! We've purchased most of the items we need. And, this past weekend, we made all of the diy chocolates! When we start started, we realized it was time intensive, and I didn't think it could be done in a weekend, but with tons of help from Newport Mom, they are all done and packaged to go!

Here's a glimpse into the process:

We had multiple molds. If your doing a ton of these, I recommend having more than one mold. It takes a lot of time for them to cool, so you have to do all the work, then wait, then do it all over again. It's really messy, so getting more than one set done at a time helps.

We had molds for large shells, sand dollars, starfish and a mold with mixed smaller shells. The starfish kept breaking when we popped them out, so we decided to skip them. It was too much work and about half broke each time. Delicate molds are harder to do, the little starfish arms broke off. The other items didn't have any points sticking off to break, so thewy all stayed in tact.All of the chocolates were done with milk chocolate, except the sand dollars. We added white chocolate to the design, and these ended up being our favorite. We bought brushes to add the detailed work. If you do this, you have to make sure to clean it with hot water after each use, otherwise the chocolate hardens and gets grainy.

After adding the white chocolate, these had to cool.
At first we tried using Wilton chocolate-making squeeze bottles. It was so messy to transport the chocolate between the bowl to the tube, and it hardened quicker.Newport Mom decided to just use a pyrex measuring cup and spoon. She also learned timing the chocolate in the mircowave is key. She burnt the first batch and decided to start with 30 seconds and move down to 15 second heating peroids, while mixing in between.

We also learned that after cleaning the molds, you have to completely dry it. If there is any moisture at all, the top off the chocolates comes out funny and it looks sort of peeled. At first we couldn't figure it out, but after trying the second round, it seemed like this could have been the problem.

I had originally done my own trial with Ghiradelli chocolate and they didn't come out as good. I like the flavor of Ghiradelli, but after heating it, it doesn't taste as good. This time, we used chocolate designated for candy making and it came out so much better!

After a lot of heating chocolate, pouring chocolate, cooling chocolate and repeating, we were finally able to package them!

I had bought cellophane bags and we tied it with a ribbon.

Are you making anything special for your out of town bags? If you've made chocolates before, do you have any tips to share?