Baking with Chocolate: Our Top Tips
Deliciously indulgent, rich and sweet, there’s a good reason chocolate is one of the nation’s favourite treats. Combine chocolate with baked goods and you know you’ll be onto a winner!
Maple Chocolates was the very first shop in the Maple family, and we have curated a selection of some of the best chocolate money can buy, from individual handmade truffles to Welsh chocolate bars and novelty delights.
If you ever dreamt about winning a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s factory, a visit to Maple Chocolates is the next best thing. We pride ourselves in choosing only the very best chocolate and confectionery for our customers, and once you’ve tried our quality chocolate we know you won’t want to eat anything else.
There are so many ways to enjoy chocolate: while you’re watching a film; as a dessert; as a gift; on tables as favours; and of course in baking! But with so many different varieties and flavours to choose from, how do you know what chocolate to use and when?!
In this blog we’ll give you the 101 on the best chocolate to use in different bakes, along with some of our favourite recipes.
Chocolate Brownies
A firm favourite with all chocolate connoisseurs, chocolate brownies are one of the most satisfying chocolate bakes around, but they’re also one of the most tricky recipes to perfect. In our opinion, the best brownies are those with a crunchy top and gooey, fudgy centre - where the chocolate is the star.
BBC Good Food’s Best Ever Brownies really do live up to their name. This recipe calls for 3 different types of chocolate: dark chocolate is used in the batter itself, while white and milk chocolate chunks are dotted throughout the mix.
A good quality dark chocolate (like this one) is key for this recipe. When a recipe requests dark chocolate to be used in the batter itself, never be tempted to switch to milk. Don’t panic that the brownies will taste bitter, they won’t, they’ll be rich and delicious!
When it comes to the milk and white chocolate chips, chopping up a chocolate bar will give you lovely chunky pieces of chocolate that are much more generous than ready made chocolate chips. For a more adult flavour, try chopping up a Seed and Bean mint chocolate bar or our Montezuma’s Orange and Geranium bar.
Top tip: For the perfect brownies, bake them the day before you need them. Leave them in the fridge overnight and cut in the morning - they’ll still be fudgy, but they’ll be much easier to slice!
Chocolate Blondies
The lesser known cousin of the brownie: chocolate blondies are similar to brownies, but are made with white chocolate. One of our favourite recipes for blondies are the White Chocolate and Raspberry blondies from Jane’s Patisserie. (You’ll need to scroll down to the bottom to find the instructions, but it is worth it!).
These blondies have a lovely texture and flavour, and again, it’s all about the chocolate! The nicer the flavour of your white chocolate, the better the flavour of the blondies. The sweetness of our Montezuma Vanilla White Chocolate would be offset perfectly with tangy raspberries, and our Choc Affair White Chocolate Bar would be ideal for those looking for a classic blondie.
Top Tip: If you’re going to drizzle your blondies with melted white chocolate, either by using a piping bag or a teaspoon, use short and fast movements… drizzle too slowly and you’ll end up with a wobbly pattern that just won’t look as impressive (but they’ll still taste delicious!).
Chocolate Cake
There are so many chocolate cake recipes out there, but a go-to of ours is Mary Berry’s Chocolate Fudge Cake. Even though it’s cocoa powder rather than chocolate in the batter itself, we couldn’t write about chocolate recipes without including this one!
When it comes to the filling, a good quality chocolate is key for a delicious ganache. Not only will it taste much better, but it’ll also be far less likely to split. The recipe suggests a bar with 39% cocoa solids. Our Choc Affair Milk Chocolate Bar would be delicious, as would The Little Welsh Chocolate Company Milk Chocolate Bar.
Top Tip: If your ganache splits, whisk a little bit of room temperature milk into the mixture and it will come back together nicely.
Decorating with Chocolate
When you’re making a celebration cake, it’s the little extra touches that can elevate home baking from well done to wonderful!
Our selection of loose chocolates are the ideal size to be added to the top of cakes for a bit of extra magic, and our chocolate lollipops are great cake toppers. Grating chocolate can also be a good way to add texture to the top of a cake, without needing to buy any more ingredients.
Using pre-made cake toppers is a quick and easy way to finish off your cakes without causing you any extra hassle, and our novelty chocolates can often be a brilliant way to personalise a cake for a special occasion.
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