Coloring Chocolate

[comtec]

I want to make a gift for my gran, whose turning 99.
How can i color white chocolate and retain its chocolatey texture?

[housewolf]

1. There are a couple ways

One is to paint the white chocolate with the color(s) of your choice.

Another way is to add food coloring to the white chocolate while it is melting.

You need to be careful about what type of food coloring you use, however. You can't use the water-based liquid stuff you find at the grocery store, because the water will cause the chocolate to "sieze" (turn clump together and turn lumpy and hard). Chocolate that has siezed can be "fixed" and re-melted with the addition of some cocoa butter, but it's really a pain to do.

You need either oil-based paste colors, which can be mixed into the melted chocolate, or powders (which you mix with melted cocoa butter).

There's a little info at the bottom of this page
http://www.baking911.com/chocolate/basics.htm

The easiest way, though, is to use colored coating discs - you can buy the colors that you want and just melt them, then use as melted or apply with a paint brush to your white chocolate, frosting or whatever you are making if you want to paint something. I've worked with these a little, and the are very easy to work with. You can combine with melted white chocolate for a light tint, or use for decorating.

Hope that helps a little. What are you making for your grandmother?

[supernova]

2. Colored chocolate

You can find colored white chocolate discs at a craft store like Michael's or A C Moore, though the selection tends toward the seasonal ( red and green at xmas, red and pink for Valentines, for example -- may be exactly what you are looking for).

If you have any sort of specialty food shop, they may also have paste colors in small vials. You can have a lot of fun with that. Remember a little, meaning a drop or two in a batch, may be enough to achieve the effect you want.

[comtec]

3. I'm attempting to make penguin molds

I have some cherry chocolate i got at walmart on post-seasonal discount, and make a kind of brown with the milk chocolate.

I found some colored sugar and tried using that with not very good results tbh.
I got just enough good blue to make one eye (the mold makes 3).

I decided to hell with it and just used white for the beak.
I'll post a picture when im done ^^

[trud]

4. congrats gran! n/t