Candy melts are essential when it comes to cookie and cake pop decorating. Here is how you can make your own candy melts to use for cake decorating or as an edible gift.
Until I was 9 years old I grew up in a place where things were not readily available. In East Germany one could not just go to the store to buy stuff. Sure, they had the very basics like milk, butter, bread, apples, cabbage but forget about more “fancy” things like chocolate, coffee, tea, bananas, oranges. Those things meant standing in line for hours, if they were available at all. It was the same with non food items. Around Christmas time my sister’s and my toys kept disappearing and our parents would rework and re-gift them to us on Christmas – I will never forget the joy I felt when I saw the dollhouse my dad made from our old 2 bedroom doll house. He remodeled it into a 2 story mansion with a bathroom, working lights and windows. It is safe to say I have DIY in my DNA. Yes, it’s contagious, watch out!
Anyway, sorry for this long excursion, but I wanted to share where my drive for do-it-yourself stems from. This will also explain why I bothered making my own candy melts when I could just order them online. Candy melts are not widely available in Germany. If you want to get them here, you have order from specialty stores and usually there are some hefty shipping costs involved. If I were to just order one bag of candy melts (ca. 370g) I’d end up paying 5 Euro for the candy and about 4 Euro for shipping, 9 Euro a pop. You know I make cake pops way too often to pay that price (yet not often enough to get wholesale discounts – though I dream of it regularly – I have no place to store 10 kg of candy melts – and really I should never be alone with that much chocolate.) So I started tinkering around and made my own candy melts. I have used them for my teal cake pops.
Ingredients
- 200g white chocolate (best quality if you can)
- gel food color (ca. 1/2 tsp. total)
Method
1. Break the chocolate into its pieces. Melt the white chocolate in the microwave (I needed ca. 1 minute for 200 g of broken down white chocolate). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Add food color until you have the desired shade. A note about color: because white chocolate is not white, but really more yellow consider that in your color choices. It is easy to make teal and green tones that already have a hint of yellow in it. I tried purple and it turned out very dark because I needed a lot of food color to get out of the brown phase. Next time I will try to make pink ones.
3. Fill the colored chocolate into a one way piping bag. Once all the chocolate is filled in completely, cut the tip to make a small opening.
4. Start piping little dollops onto the parchment paper.
5. Wait until completely dry before moving them into an air tight container or gift bag.
For the total cost of 1,50 Euro for 200g I am very happy with the result. I manually stirred in the food color, so it is not 100% evenly spread out, and the result are some small specks where the color didn’t distribute evenly, but that is minimal in the grand scheme of things 🙂
Ok, now give this a try, maybe make some pink ones and tell me how they turn out. Or stick around and join me at marveling over how pretty they look. 😉
Hugs!
Dani!
I have never ever heard about candy melts until today! Thanks for explaining and your wonderful step-by-step tutorial. Like you I am born and raised in East Germany and DIY-Addiction is something we got with our mother’s milk (is there a better translation? please let me know ;-)). I love the shape of the candy melts and how can one resist not to try to make them – a pretty easter decoration as well!
Hugs, Sandy
They are cute, aren’t they?! I like the chip shape too, makes it so much easier melting them 🙂 Can’t wait to see what your look like, my fellow Ossi Kind haha.
İ ve heard that chocolate is heavier than Candy melts. Does it matter?
Heavier how?
I heard candy melts are like cooking chocolate and has vegetable oil in. Im from UK and never heard of them till I found a recipe that used them Blueberry and lemon truffles Still researching 🙂
O wow Dani, you are so creative to make these yourself!! I’m impressed… I didn’t know they were so hard to find in Germany. Not that they are everywhere here but I never thought about it since I get them for my job and never really buy them myself. But I actually like making them with white chocolate more then the ones you get pre-colored. The consistency is different, which makes me like the chocolate ones better!
You are so right, I like that fact that we can choose the quality of chocolate and so guide flavor and consistency, it’s a bit more freedom 🙂
I was so excited to find this! I need red candy melts but the only ones I can find may contain traces of nuts and my 2 year old has a severe peanut allergy. We live in a pretty remote place and don’t have access to any specialty stores. I did however find red food coloring gel and came home excited to try it.. But it didn’t work!!!! Just like regular food coloring it didn’t work. The gel made the white chocolate seize!!!!!! Am I missing something? Is your gel water or oil based???? Please help..
Hi Carey, so sorry to hear it didn’t work out. My food color is water based (Betty Crocker Gel Colors). Try a different type of white chocolate and make sure you don’t heat it too much that will also make it seize. I prefer the microwave compared to the bain marie method for melting the chocolate. You can also try to first mix the food color with a tsp of veggie oil and then mixing it in. I will experiment some more to see how to get to red…or pink 🙂
Hi Dani,
I had the same sort of problem as Carey did 🙁
Since I didn’t have plain chocolate but only couverture chocolate I used that to try making my very own chocolate melts. I used yellow food coloring as I have to make Manchaster United Cakepops.
But before I was able to stirr in the food coloring evenly, the chocolate mixture firmed up.
I won’t give up though. Maybe it really is the quality of chocolate. Will have to try again and hopefully next time it works.
I envy you big time for your results 😉
I think couverture should work as well, try adding a tad of vegetable oil to the chocolate before you add the color and make sure you don’t over heat the chocolate in the microwave 🙂
Will definitely try that. Don’t think I overheated as I didn’t use the microwave but melted the couverture over a pot of hot water (not even boiling)
Anyways, thanks for advice and I will report back if my candy melts turn out to be a success 🙂
when you are using chocolate you can not use normal food color that is in the grocery store because it is water based. You need gel based food coloring which is made with oil and not water. Chocolate and water don’t go well and your chocolate may have seized (i think that is the right word).
guest
That is true 🙂 However, the gel color I used I got from the supermarket (US) 🙂
Please do 🙂 ! When I used the water bath method I always got the condensation of the water to make the chocolate size, so I switched to the microwave method 🙂
OMG you are my favorite person right now. I can’t find these where I live and this recipe saved my life. Thanks a lot.
Hansy, glad this was helpful 🙂
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! I was lusting for Candy melts (almost impossible to find in Buenos Aires) and your recipe is so simple! Thank you again!
Hi! Water based or gel based food color will cause melted chocolates to seize. Use oil based food color or better yet oil based CHOCOLATE food colors to tint your white chocolate. 🙂
Great tip!
Can I use milkybar for white chocolate?
Hi! Would you know where I could get powder or oil-based coloring that won’t cost a small fortune?? I live in New Zealand and candy melts and gel colors are very rare to find 🙁
Just found your blog, and am enjoying reading through! You are very creative!
Radhika
Thanks Radhika 🙂
I like chocolate
Hi thanks, i will definitely try this, since candy melts aren’t readily available here and when you do find then, they are super expensive. thanks again and will let you know how they come out. I want to make some cake pops.
Thank you for this DIY,just asking could you use milk or dark chocolate if you plan on not using colour?
Yes, I have made them with milk chocolate/couverture before!
Thank you so much sweetie for this! I am just getting into baking goodies from scratch and this is very helpful! Question: How many chocolate melts were you able to make with this? I am wondering if it will be worth making my own. They sell them at this store called Michaels for $3.00 for .12oz bag of candy melts approximately 120 wafers. I think that’s a bit pricey.
Hi Nataly, I am not sure how many this made, but around the content of a regular bag. If you can get them at Michael’s for 3 bucks, I would go for that. But if you had to pay 13 like some of us not in the US, making your own is worth it I think 🙂
Is there a particular trick to tempering the chocolate? It might just be Australian heat and humidity, But the white chocolate wont set hard at all, Not even in the fridge, its still kinda pliable. I’m in the same boat with candy melts costing an arm and a leg due to shipping.
You should use a thermometer to do that and get 2/3 of the chocolate up to 27-28 C and then cool it down with the rest of the chocolate added…
Hi there, I don’t know how old this post is but really need some advice. I live in the U.K. Candy melts are expencive here and I am wanting to make chocolate Lollies using Lolly moulds. I melted chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. I added food colouring, everything was fine I froze my chocolate for an hour and then put then put it in the fridge over night, the next day I went to put the chocolate into cellophane bags and it was tacky and slowly melting in my hands and went all over the cellophane bags making a mess. I wanted them hard and crisp and not where they would melt so easily. My question is if I make my own melts am I not still going to have that same issue? I’m thinking I’m going to have to make my own chocolate? And dreading it already. Any advice is much appreacited. Thank you!!
Amazing points permanently, you only acquired your brand completely new reader. Just what exactly will you highly recommend relating to your placed you produced 1 week prior to now? Virtually any positive?
tq for the tips. really appreciate it 🙂
Im from Malaysia. the candy melt here is so expensive.
Iiyana! Were on the same boaaat! I’m from Indonesia and candy melts is very expensive here! It’s about 36.000 Rupiah a bag…. I don’t know how much that in ringgits but it is expensive for me!
In englandc its equivalent to 90000 rupiah
Where do you get that chocalate you used
I got mine at Aldi here in Germany 🙂
thank you so much i thought when i used white chocolate that i was doing wrong but my only problem is the color shades i cant have a skyblue or any blue and i dont know how to solve this as i cant find any candy melts products here in egypt so please advise
thank you
Hi Samar, I am not quite sure, what color do you want to achieve?
Hello Dani, I was just wondering, if you want to make white candy melts, do you just use white chocolate?
Thanks x
Hi Emma, yes I would just omit the food color and use the chocolate as it, though it will have a bit of a yellow tint 🙂
So do I still have to wait for them to dry on the baking parchment, or can I use the chocolate straight away? I’m trying to make cake pops 😀
Thanks x
Yes, use it right away to dip 🙂
Sorry about all this, but if you do know anything about cake pops – do I have to use vanilla frosting to fix the cake crumbs together, or can I use something else?
Thanks x
You could use just cream cheese if you want it not too sweet 🙂
Hi Dani,
I am making cake pops for my daughters birthday this weekend and very excited about it!! I tried making them last night and had a problem with the stick staying in the cake pop 🙁 Is there a secret or best pratice you use?!?! Or any other tips would be helpful! Thanks for all your knowledge above as well!
Hi Sarah, the trick is to dip the stick in the chocolate first and then gently put the pop on, then let this dry and you are good to go for dipping the rest, I have written about it here (point 7): https://andcute.com/chocolate-cake-pops-from-scratch/ Hope this helps 🙂
to make the stick stay on the cake pops, I usually bore a hole on the cake balls (about 5cm) using the stick itself, turning it several times in a cycling motion until I get the preferred hole size. It shouldn’t be too wide (just a little wider than the diameter of your lollipop stick) but enough space to stuff some melted chocolates in it then insert the stick less than halfway thru the cake ball. Let it sit for at least one minute and the melted chocolate will start hardening up as it cools. The hardened chocolate stuffed inside of the cake ball holds the stick better compared to just dipping the stick and inserting it. Every time I finish a batch, I put them in the frigde to cool further and take them out to thaw when ready for coating with candy melts. Works well for me…hope it does with yours.
What a great idea and a fantastic way of creating your own colors, especially the limited edition or hard to find colors =)
Wow i love your recepie!
I live in middle east and like you, things are not readily available here. I wanted to purchuase candy melts but shipping was so much.
Thank you very much
Hi, after reading all the posts and comments about white chocolate having a yellow tinge, i was wonderin if anyone had tried adding a little super white powder to the melted chocolate before colouring it or wouldn’t it work?
Thank you for posting this!! I’ll try to make it!!
OMG! Thank you so much!!!! now i can actually make cake pops!!!!!
Glad I could help! 🙂
Hi, i am making cakepops for a peanut allergy child. I need pink coating but can only use log house almond bark as it is the only peanut free option. I am wondering if i can use kool ade dry powder without sugar ( the small packs that are 10/$1) to tint my almond bark. I tried the gel but could only find wilton gel color and it failed miserably. Any ideas?
I haven’t tried working with KoolAid Powder or Almond Bark so I have no idea how the two will work together, but it’s worth a try. Give it a try in a small batch and see how it works. I’d be happy if you shared the results 🙂
I need candy melts for modeling chocolate and I need to know if these will melt because they are not tempered.. :-\ Thnx 🙂
Most modeling chocolate recipes have you use real chocolate or white chocolate, add the color to the corn syrup or knead in the color after it sets. No need to make colored candy melts first. Check out Wickedgoodies.com. I have her book, and it works well.
Das ist ja klasse.finde candy melt auch etwas teuer .danke für das tolle rezept dachte immer dass es mit den gelfarben klumpt aber das tut es wohl nicht wie es aussieht. Vielen dank werde jetzt etwas auf deinem blog rumstöbern 😉 . Glg aus ilsenburg ♥
If you’re studying to turn into higher credit score free then you experience go through out our website.
My coder is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.
I have always disliked the idea because of the
expenses. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on numerous
websites for about a year and am anxious about switching to another platform.
I have heard great things about blogengine.net. Is there a
way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it?
Any kind of help would be really appreciated!
Thank you for sharing your info. I really appreciate your efforts and I am waiting for your next post thanks once again.
Hi Dani. Thanks for sharing your wonderful idea on how to make your own candy melt, ill try them as well, i remember the last time i did making dip was really frustating as all my chocolate got thicken, dont know why? 🙁
Hi Dani just found your site,Thanks for the recipe, saved me from sending for more expensive ones, doing some pops for a local fete, and didn’t know what candy melts consisted of, I can make my own now , cheers.
can you use liguidy food colouring instead of gel
When selecting memorabilia or general purpose utility items as gifts,
avoid items such as perfume and religious or superstitious items.
You may also want to look into third party payment processors
and payment gateways. Most of the suppliers offer home delivery feature within a few days of placing order.
hello there and thank you for your info – I’ve definitely picked up anything new from right here.
I did however expertise several technical issues using this
website, as I experienced to reload the web site many times previous to I could get it to load
correctly. I had been wondering if your web host is OK?
Noot that I’m complaining, but slow loading instances
times will often affect you placement in google and can damage your high quality score if ads and
marketing with Adwords. Well I am adding this RSS to my email and coulld look out forr a lot more of
your respective exciting content. Make sure you update this again veryy soon.
Thawnks for anotgher excellent post. The place else may just anybody
get that type of info in such a perfect manner of writing?
I have a presentation next week, and I’m on the look for such info.
Hi there, every time i used to check weblog posts here in the early hours in the daylight,
for the reason tha i love to learn more and more.
I’ve been surfing online greater than 3 hours as oof late, yet I
by nno means found any interesting article like yours.
It’s lovvely value sufficient for me. In my opinion, if all webmjasters and
bloggers made good content material as you did, the net will likely be a lot more
helpful thaqn evrr before.
Hello colleagues, how is everything, and what you desire to say concerning this paragraph, in my view itts genuinely awesome in support of
me.
I do not even understand how I stopped up here, but I believed
this publish used to be good. I don’t realize who you are
but definitely you are going to a famous blogger should you aren’t
already. Cheers!
Hello very nice web site!! Man .. Beautiful ..
Wonderful .. I will bookmark your web site and take the feeds additionally?
I’m satisfied to find numerous useful information here inn the put up, we
want work out more techniques on this regard, thanbks for sharing.
. . . . .
We absolutely love your blog and find the majority of your post’s
to be exactly what I’m looking for. Would youu offer guest writers
to write content available for you? I wouldn’t mind writing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write
relaed to here. Again, awesome web site!
I think this is one of the most important info for me.
And i am glad studying your article. But shoukd remark on some normal issues,
The sitte style is wonderful, the articles iss acttually excellent :
D. Excellent task, cheers
Hello! I’ve been following your weblog for some time now and fijnally
got the bravery to go ahsad and giive you a shout oout from New Caney Tx!
Just wanted to mention keep up the great job!
Link exchange is nothing elze but it is only placingg thhe ther person’s blog
link oon your page at apropriate place andd other person will also do same in support of you.
Hi there everyone, it’s mmy first pay a quick visit at this website, and paragraph is
truly fruitful ffor me, keep up posting these content.
Thankfulnjess to my father who informed mee regarding this blog, this web sife is truly awesome.
It’s impressive that you are gettting thoughts from this pisce of writing as wedll as from ourr argument made at this time.
I enjoy looking through a post that caan make men and women think.
Also, thanks for allowing for me to comment!
I’m masturbated to this… My Cum is on the floor now and slowly dripping down my legs..
The small specks are is actually fat bloom in the white chocolate. It happens when chocolate is not tempered. Go and check out more on tempering chocolate. Hoped this helped.
I really like those candy melts and you should also go and check out this site to http://www.myidolpops.com/
Hi Dani,
Will this recipe work for pipping shapes? I don’t need food colouring so the white is perfect but thought I’d ask
Kind Regards,
Alison
Hi Alison, I am not sure about shapes other than circles. Would also depend on the chocolate you begin with…
I read this piece of writing fully on the topic of the comparison of latest and earlier technologies, it’s amazing article.
Yes can you mix it put it small ducks molds n let it dry i have a baby shower n its all about ducks which kind of white choc do i use never done this before
Is it compulsory to use a cookie and parchment sheet
Is it compulsory to use a cookie and parchment sheet
Hope I can get some expertise from you, I can’t get any vanilla Candy melts for Valentine’s Day chocolate I am going to make. Just wondering if you have any advice to make the Candy Melts whiter using the white chocolate?
Hi, thanks for the recipe and the tutorial. I want to make cake pop, and i’m a bit lazy to make candy melt. BTW, i’m from Indonesia, and candy melt is not available here (and it’s my first time hear about candy melt). So can i just cut out my chocolate into small pieces and melt it, and use it to dip my cake pop? Or i should make candy melt?
What is the different between candy melt and chocolate?
Thank You
(sorry if u find my english is bad)
What kind of gel food coloring did u use? I just mixed gel food coloring to my melted white choco (bar) for my cakepops but it turned out unusable. It ‘seized’
We stumbled over here by a different website and thought I should check things out.
I like what I see so now i’m following you. Look forward to
looking over your web page repeatedly.
We’re a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community.
Your site provided us with valuable info to work on. You’ve done a formidable job and our entire community will be
thankful to you.
Thank you very much for the tutorial and recepie. It worked out very well in blue, yellow, orange, red and green :).
Hi blogger, do you monetize your blog ? There is easy method to earn extra money every
day, just search on youtube : How to earn with wordai 4
Very detailed and hepful.is there another way of melting the chocolate without a microwave?
I have noticed you don’t monetize your site,
don’t waste your traffic, you can earn additional cash
every month because you’ve got hi quality content.
If you want to know how to make extra money, search for: Mrdalekjd methods for $$$
Great post! Have nice day ! 🙂 kqkgv
Of course, before trying heading to that ball, you must discover the equipment and tools you will
need inside game. )”If it weren’t for bad luck in trading, I would haven’t any Luck at all. It takes time to build up camaraderie this way, nevertheless, you can speed the process up a bit by ensuring that all people have access to plenty of team development activities.
Sorry Kt, no French version yet…