Why is my baking chocolate splitting into an oily mess? | Kitchen Aid

After years of making trouble-free truffles and ganaches, they suddenly seize up and turn into an oily mess. I tried different dark and melted chocolates in the microwave. What's going on?Louise, Birmingham"It could be the chocolate itself, so check the ingredients, because there could be other things that interfere," says Ravneet Gill, baking columnist at The Guardian. Baking chocolate, for example, often contains added oils and fats, making it less reliable. Gill therefore suggests using a 70-72% bar from the candy department instead. And, says Joanna Brennan, co-founder of Pump Street Chocolate in Orford, Suffolk, buy the best quality you can afford: “The truffles and ganache are 100% based on the taste of chocolate and cream. (In their simplest form, they are, after all, just two parts chocolate to one part cream.)

That said, the technique is by far the most likely cause of Louise's oily mess. , and more particularly its use of the microwave. “They get very hot very quickly,” says Benjamina Ebuehi, another Guardian columnist for Gill. "Looks like the temperature of Louise's chocolate is getting really high and the fat in the chocolate is separating and getting greasy." Because of this, Brennan, Gill, and Ebuehi all heat their cream in a saucepan on the stove, then pour it over the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. "You don't want to bring the cream to a boil, but you want it to be hot enough for it to smoke," Ebuehi explains. And chop the chocolate finely (and all about the same size): "That way it will melt evenly, and you won't have to agitate it as much, which can also cause it to crack." Once the cream and chocolate are together, Gill lets the bowl sit for 30 seconds to a minute, then, using a hand whisk, “slowly mix from the middle only, until it looks like ganache. Then use the whisk to stir from the edges to the middle. You're just looking to combine the mixture evenly, says Gill, without incorporating air.

If, however, disaster strikes, all is not lost. When faced with a stiff, cracked mixture, Ebuehi turns to a tablespoon or two of hot milk: "Whisk a little at a time, and it usually brings it together." Gill, meanwhile, adds a few splashes of cold cream and beats it with a hand mixer: "It works for me every time."

And remember, The whole point of a chocolate truffle is, well, the chocolate, so don't get carried away with other flavorings (alcohol or vanilla extract, for example), which might make the mixture runny. If, however, you want to up the ante, infuse the cream first. "It's my favorite way to add flavor," says Brennan, who often adds a vanilla bean or mint leaves. Whatever you do, however, don't bother giving your truffles a shiny, hard shell (like the ones you see in stores). This is achieved by tempering the chocolate, a process which Brennan says is useful to understand, but rather unnecessary when it comes to making truffles at home. "I just make a stiff ganache, ball it up, and roll it in cocoa powder," she says. "The magic of homemade truffles is that they really are homemade."

Have a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com