Why does chocolate only melt smoothly in a pot inside hot water, but not in a pot that is directly heated?
In: 479
TL;DR you can, but you’ll likely burn the chocolate, and flames don’t burn soft enough to make this easy to do.
It WILL melt smoothly in a pot that is on direct heat… the problem is that for basically every stove in the world, direct heat is too hot, and you’ll burn the chocolate instead of just melting it. chocolate is EXTREMELY easy to burn and solidify chunks of it, and one of the easier ways to work with it is to heat it slowly over a water bath, because it won’t burn at that temperature.
If you’re extremely careful and diligent, you can heat it over higher temperatures on a direct flame, but to avoid burning you have to be constantly AND QUICKLY scraping all the walls of the bowl/pot, and more than likely moving back and forth from being on the heat to off the heat. Can also melt it in a microwave if you do it at intervals of like 20-30 seconds, stir, 20-30 seconds, stir, until melted.
It’s also easier to reach temperatures for tempering chocolate properly using water bath, but that’s out of ELI5 territory.
Latest Answers