I had thought I had completed phase 1 product testing Magical Butter’s dark chocolate when I finished making dark chocolate covered strawberries. I was very, VERY wrong, which I did not know at the time so I moved on to testing their milk chocolate.
Milk Chocolate
So the revolutionary idea behind Magical Butter is you can melt the chocolate and not worry about the tempering process at all. Just add your flavourings and you are good to go. It is a genius concept!
Chocolate Bark
After covering the strawberries in the dark chocolate I had some leftover so I decided to make one of my favourite things in the world. Chocolate bark!
Just poured the chocolate onto some parchment paper and added sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, organic dried cranberries and dried blueberries. Yum!!!
Milk Chocolate Bars
While that was setting I got the ingredients together to make my own milk chocolate bars. As you can tell I love nuts, seeds and fruit with chocolate so I toasted up some slivered almonds and got more of the dried fruit.
I got out my fancy pants expensive chocolate bar mold which I have only used once before to make strawberry milk chocolates. I was so excited!
OK maybe I went a little crazy and put too much melted chocolate and fruit in there but I did not want anything to go to waste.
I found the chocolate was taking a long time to set so I put the bars and the bark in the fridge.
WTF?
In just an hour or so this very strange almost salmon pink bloom formed all over the chocolate. I was horrified! Setting chocolate in the fridge is quite normal. This, is not.
I had these beautiful chocolate-covered strawberries and was now scared to put the few remaining in the fridge so I covered them and left them overnight.
Well the chocolate was so sweet is macerated the strawberries which then turned moldy!!! I had to throw it all away. OMG, I hate waste and food waste is absolutely unacceptable.
The Bars
The first several times I tried to get the chocolate bar out of the mold, it refused to budge. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I carved off the excess chocolate… Nope. I started to panic. This is a much more flexible and soft chocolate than REAL tempered chocolate and I was scared it would never come out.
Foodie Conclusion
I threw the mold into the freezer and left it for days. I was so angry. No, this is not the same as tempered chocolate at all. I finally got it out when my sister suggested filling a lasagna dish with hot water and rest it on top for 30 seconds or so. I turned the mold over and smashed it against a cutting board. FINALLY!
There is no doubt Magical Butter chocolates are delicious, easy to melt and keep their shine. They lack the crack and solidness of properly tempered chocolate and discolour if you put it in the fridge. As a result, I would say that this is good for people who just want to melt chocolate, not deal with tempering who want to add their own creative edibles and then eat. Which is fine. If you are like me and want more than that? I say, temper your chocolate.
This chocolate is excellent quality and does live up to its promise to be easy to use for making thick coatings but for real-deal chocolate making, I give it a pass. It changing colour in the fridge freaked me out and resulted in wasted food.
For chocolate novices I give this product four out of five wooden spoons. For people who really want to play with chocolate, go for the real deal.
There’s always a downside to convenience, it seems!
It does look good.