Heating up chocolate, what am k doing wrong?

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My kids love choc cornflakes things, super easy to make. So why is it, 50% of the time I heat the chocolate, it goes thick and grainy? Sort of congeals.

I normally use cooking chocolate (because I thought other choc was the issue). I put it in a glass bowl in the microwave. I read that water can cause this, so now I make sure everything is completely dry, and don't use wooden implements. But still this happens - but only sometimes. I've tried reheating when it gets like this but that makes it even worse.

I've also a tried a BainMarie, but that was even worse! What am I doing wrong? Why am I finding heating chocolate so hard?!

Sounds like it might just be that you're using poor-quality chocolate. I always just heat it in the microwave and it's fine. I never bother using a bain marie. Just heat it in short blasts and stir in between. I second Aldi chocolate. The Moser Roth stuff is great.

Was it the Chocolate Tart?

Ive just looked it up, marks and spencers just as an example

What is it, why is it 'cooking chocolate' rather than just chocolate?

Agree 30 second bursts in the microwave and use normal chocolate. I just use the Tesco cheapy one. Mollys I think it is called.

Very little difference these days now that we have pretty good chocolate in every supermarket! Years ago cooking chocolate was mainly bought from a wholesaler in 5lb slabs, it would be at least 50% cocoa solids so not as sweet as milk chocolate and more suitable for cooking with, eg brownies and the like. These days every supermarket, well Aldi/Lidl anyway, has a great selection of chocolate with varying cocoa solid content so easy to pick a suitable one. Some of them market a specific one as 'cooking' chocolate and that will nearly always be 50% cocoa solid chocolate.

To add to the confusion the fake 'chocolate flavoured coverings' like Scotbloc/Homecook used to be referred to as cooking chocolate years ago when we basically only had that or a bar of Dairy Milk as a choice! The chocolate flavoured coverings are much easier to melt and work with as they have much more added fat of all sorts and not cocoa butter/solids as such. They melt thinner and smoother than most real chocolates, set fast and need no tempering, great for glue if sticking things on a cake!

No the lady at Cocoa Black in Peebles I can’t remember her name. She did a chocolate competition tv thing with the hairy bikers.

Agree it's getting too hot. Gentle bain marie works for me every time.

I trained as a chef, plastic bowl in microwave was how we learned. And how they do it on MasterChef too.

I heat in microwave for 30 seconds at a time and then check till it's ready.

The other way I do it is heat the kettle, fill a saucepan with hot water and just put a plate over it with chocolate on and it melts in a minute and then I eat it.

I put boiling water in a big saucepan. Put a small saucepan in the big saucepan so it’s sort of floating on the water. Put the chocolate in the small saucepan and just leave it for 10 minutes. That’s usually enough . Then I stir the chocolate so any remaining solid bits melt.

You're burning the chocolate. Heat it in a dish over a pan of boiling water, or mix with butter when you put it in the microwave.

Also use Galaxy or Cadbury's - far nicer than cooking chocolate!

If chocolate heated in the microwave starts to get a bit craggy (not burnt!), you can usually revive it with a few drops of boiling water stirred in really vigorously. Alternatively, adding a tablespoon of water to the chocolate before you heat it and then stirring it vigorously usually works. I find this particularly useful when using the really cheap supermarket dark chocolate.