Candy Melts®, candy wafers, chocolate coating, almond bark—they’re all products made for dipping, molding, and coating without needing to temper chocolate.
I’ll call them candy wafers here, but if you see them sold under another name, don’t be alarmed. They’ll all work just the same.
Not only do candy wafers come in a variety of colors but they also come in an array flavors. Basic candy wafers—white and colored—typically have a vanilla flavor, similar to white chocolate. Chocolate candy wafers taste like, you guessed it, chocolate! You’ll also find birthday cake, salted caramel, chocolate mint, pumpkin spice, and candy cane, just to name a few. (I love to make this peppermint popcorn every winter!)
Candy wafers are usually made from sugar, oils, whey powder, milk, and vanilla, along with coloring and other flavors. Chocolate wafers contain cocoa.
You’ll typically find candy wafers in disc form.
Almond bark, on the other hand, tends to be sold in bricks or squares. In case you were wondering like I was, almond bark does not contain almonds. You can use it to make almond bark, though. Mmm. That sounds delicious.
The key to using candy wafers is to melt them low and slow.
Start heating them in the microwave in 30-second intervals at 50% power. Repeat. After every cycle, remove the bowl from the microwave and stir.
At first, you won’t see anything happening. That’s ok. Keep those intervals of 30 seconds at 50% power going.
Towards the end, you might have just a clump or two. At that time, switch to 15- or 20-second intervals. Heat and stir until completely smooth.
Depending on the application, you might find that your melted candy wafers are too thick. For example, when making cake pops, I like the melted wafers pretty thin. I used to use Crisco, stirring it into the melted wafers until it melted. It works, but now I prefer to use Paramount Crystals.
Paramount Crystals actually look like soap flakes. Stir them in a bit at a time into the melted wafers. The neat thing about the crystals is that the wafers will still set up hard, as opposed to Crisco which can give the set coating a slightly softer feel. Either will work though, so don’t feel like the crystals are a must-have.
Once your wafers are melted, it’s time to dip, or coat, or fill candy molds! This is where the real fun begins! Not only can you dip into the wafers, but you can pour wafers into piping bags and drizzle, squiggle, and decorate to your heart’s content.
Here’s what I made for you: Birthday Cake Pretzels. My husband, son, and I were close to arm wrestling over the last few.
The good thing is, they’re so easy to make, and I can have another batch ready in minutes. Hey, that gives me an idea …
