Why does water make chocolate seize?

Question

I’ve made the mistake of getting a little water into chocolate while melting it for some baking. Why does water make chocolate seize up when for most other things it makes it more liquid?

In: 9

Answer 1

Water makes chocolate seize because it causes the chocolate to become too thick and clumpy to use in baking. When chocolate is melted, the cocoa butter and sugar in the chocolate combine to create a smooth, liquid consistency. However, when water is added to the chocolate, it disrupts this process and causes the chocolate to thicken and clump together. This can cause problems when trying to bake with chocolate, as it can lead to an uneven distribution of chocolate in the batter and a final product that is either burnt or undercooked.

Answer 2

chocolate comes in varying ratios of cocoa, cocoa butter, and sugar. whether cold, room temp, or melted, the 3 components are emulsified in harmony. water, however, does not mix with fat. they sort of repel each other, so when you get water into melted chocolate, the fat separates from the sugar and cocoa causing the clumps we see. we can use heavy cream or butter to make ganache or runnier chocolate because both contain fat. so it emulsifies nicely with the other fat in the chocolate.

Answer 3

According to [this Smithsonian Magazine article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-physics-tells-us-about-making-perfect-chocolate-180954252/), chocolate has six distinct crystalline configurations, and some are much more stable (and pleasantly textured) than others. Navigating between those states during prep, whether simply melting or tempering, is both challenging and rewarding, and involves a practical understanding of chocoate’s _phase diagram_, which is essentially a map of how a material transitions between different configurations (like different solid forms) and phases of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma) at given temperatures and pressures.

Phase diagrams are also really important to understanding geology, as they can help model how rock behaves as tectonic plates interact with one another.