Melting Chocolate in the Microwave

I recently made Duncan Hines' Red andWhite Velvet Cookies as one my twelve new recipes to try for 2014.

While the recipe calls for a combination of white chocolate premium baking bars (in pieces) and vegetable shortening, melted for dipping half of the cookie into, I chose to take a different path. I chose to melt white chocolate chips in the microwave.

Melting chocolate in the microwave can be a bit tricky as I have learned from doing this time and time again. Heat the chocolate too high too quickly and it will seize. Don't heat the chocolate high enough and you may not be able to finish dipping or drizzling before the chocolate solidifies.

To melt chocolate in a microwave, start with a clean and dry glass bowl. Make certain the pieces of chocolate to be melted are of a small, uniform size, especially if you're not melting baking chips.

Microwave chocolate at 50% power (or medium power) for half of the time instructed by the recipe. Where all microwaves run differently, it's better to melt too little versus too much. Remove bowl from microwave and examine the chocolate. If approximately half of the chocolate looks glossy, stir with a dry spoon or spatula to finish the melting process. If less than half of the chocolate doesn't look glossy, return to microwave and microwave at 50% power (or medium power) for quarter of the time instructed by the recipe.

Once chocolate has completely melted, dip or drizzle as instructed by recipe.

If you need to melt chocolate multiple times for a recipe, such as with my Ginger Nut Clusters recipe, each subsequent melting will take less time as the bowl being used to melt and the melted chocolate already in the bowl will facilitate the melting of subsequent amounts of chocolate.

Oh, and the Red and White Velvet Cookies were a hit even though I changed step 2 in recipe. Instead of forming the dough into a log and refrigerating, I rolled 1” pieces of the dough into a ball, placed them on a non-stick cookie sheet and flattened the ball with the bottom of a drinking glass. The recipe is a keeper.

Freezing apples for pies and crisps

Those who know me know my penchant for locally grown fruits and vegetables, including apples. Several years ago by accident, I found a combination of local grown Melrouge and Cortland apples makes a nice base for the apple pie filling I make for my apple pie recipe. Firm and soft with all the flavor local grown apples provide, I wanted nothing more than to be able to freeze these apples for making apple pie during January and February when a pie made from these apples would be a great winter treat.

I needed to look no further than my copy of “Brooksby Apple Bake Cook Book” by the Peabody Historical Society which I purchased over a decade ago. Chock full of apple related muffins, breads, cakes, cookies, desserts, sauces, marmalades, page 21 contained the following on freezing apples for pie:

“Freezing Apples for Pie: Peel, halve, core, and slice apples quickly. Put in freezer bag and put in freezer as quickly as possible. Do only enough apples for one pie at a time; in this way the apples do not have time to discolor. When you are ready to use the apples for pie, you do not need to thaw them. Put them wile still frozen in your pastry shell, add sugar, spices, flour and bits of butter, top with top crust, flute edges and bake as you would a fresh apple pie.”

I started with enough apples for one pie,--two Melrouge and four Cortland apples. I peeled, halved, cored and sliced the apples shortly after buying them. I placed them immediately in a ziploc freezer bag and placed in freezer. Several months later, I made my pie crust for apple pie, lined a pie plate with half the crust, mixed the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour. I then retrieved the apples from the freezer and immediately hit a stumbling block.

The apples were frozen solid into a rectangular shape. The pie crust lined a circular pie plate. I did manage to get the rectangular block of apples into the circular pie plate along with the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour and butter as well as get the top crust over this misshapen middle. The end result was a pie which tasted great but where the apples closest to the edge of the crust had no season.

Rectangular block of apples

waiting to be made into apple pie

Determined to improve upon this, I developed the following guidelines for freezing apples for pies and crisps:

• Pre-measure the apples. In other words, make sure your freezing enough for one pie, crisp, etc.
• Freeze apples which work well with the recipe you are freezing them for. For example, I freeze a combination of Melrouge and Cortland apples for apple pie.
• Plan to use the apples within six months.
• Use Ziploc freezer bags especially if you don't plan to pre-freeze the apples. This will make a partial thaw (see last bullet point below) when using apples easier.
• You can pre-freeze apples individually on a plate or baking sheet lined with parchment paper to keep them from clumping or forming a solid mass during the freezing process. If you're like me, you don't have any room your freezer for this pre-freeze step.
• When using apples for pie or crisp which were not pre-frozen and are a solid block, make your first step in the recipe filling a large bowl with medium-hot water and placing the apples in the water. As you go forward with your recipe, the apples will begin to thaw. Thaw apples enough to where the solid block can be easily broken by hand into chunks small enough to be used in your recipe. Apples should be cold to the touch, they do not need to be completely thawed.

Melrouge and Cortland apples, previously frozen,

baked into an apple pie.