How the heck did I manage to melt chocolate wrong?

[Biscuitsandtea]

OK, I'm not quite sure how I managed to get this wrong, but I've just managed to bugger up making chocolate crispie cakes with DS .

Surely there is no easier recipe? Melt chocolate and syrup and stir in rice crispies.

Except when we tried to melt our chocolate and syrup together it went all sort of lumpy? How did we do this wrong?

Normally if I melt chocolate, it goes fine! I do a lovely chocolate brownie recipe where you melt the chocolate with butter and that comes out fine.

Is it he butter that makes it nice and smooth and glossy? Or the wrong chocolate (normally I use G&B but this time was co-op cooking chocolate because DH refused to pay twice as much for G&B.

We had 100g plain plus 100g milk - would this make the difference? Or is it the syrup.

Oh, and we were doing it stirring over a pan of hot water, although the pan wasn't on the hob, just full of hot water (not touching the bowl though).

Please help me manage a basic like melting chocolate

Just dug the choc wrappers out of the bin. Dark choc was only 48% cocoa solids and milk choc only 30%.

Could this have made the difference? I normally use G&B min 70% cocoa solids?

Thanks

Did a bit of water get into it? That makes it go lumpy.

No, I don't think so - I was holding the bowl steady while ds stirred so shouldn't have been any water get in

I always do it in a pan inside another pan with gently simmering water.
Never had a problem.
You should have added syrup after the chocolate has melted.
Also there is no point in continuously stirring-let it melt and stir at the end.

add melted butter to it and it should recover

Ah now when I said i did it over water I did mean on a bowl over water. But I did just have the water hot rather than on the job (as 3yo DS was stirring while I held it steady).

Now with the syrup, the recipe I used said to add the syrup with the chocolate to stop the chocolate from 'seizing up'??? .

Do you think the cocoa solids would have made a difference?

Thanks

On the hob, not on the job

melt the chocolate first, then add the syrup.

Ive done this a few times, but managed to bring back from the brink by adding warm water to the choc mix!

Overstirred I think, I'm pretty sure you just have to leave it alone as much as poss and just sort of - shiggle it rather than aggressive stirring.

Chocolate seizing is so annoying but as furball said sometimes some butter can bring it back from the brink!

Well we tried again this afternoon.

This time we used G&B 70%, melted it in the microwave (lazy!) and added the syrup after. And they're lovely - we're just testing them now

So it might have been the over stirring perhaps? Or the early addition of the syrup. Or both!

But thank you all for your help anyway

I melt in the microwave - always works.