chocolate sugar free, melted...

[hummingbird]

I want to make some chocolate covered pretzels and I need a recipe for the chocolate dip, but it needs to be sugar free and of course it needs to get hard when it cools....

[Guest Guest]

[Leia]

There's not really a difference in melting regular and sugar-free chocolate. I usually melt my chocolate in a cup/bowl in a pan of water (thin layer of wate rin bottom of pan). Than I just add a dollop of shortening to it before using.

 

One word of caution, the SF chocolate works rather um, well on your digestive tract, if you know what I mean!

[Mother]

It's the maltitol in the sugar free bark that causes the digestive tract problems. It is one of the "ols", like mannitol and sorbitol and etc. that can causes a pronounced laxitive effect though I understand it's supposedly less so than others of it's kind. It's supposed to be serving size safe but one serving size is a whole lot less than you might consider. I can't handle even a teaspoon of it without real reactions.

 

Can you use Carob? It's not nearly as bitter as cocoa with very little sweetener needed to make it taste palatable. You can get unsweetened carob chips in health food stores and I know they can be substituted for chocolate chips in a lot of recipes. I haven't tried it but I bet you could melt them down with your parrafin or even your lard and use them as a non sweetened coating, or conversely, how about Stevia for the sweetener in it? I understand from "chocolateer's" that it's NOT chocolate but it's a good substitute.

 

 

[hummingbird]

Okay, how would you make this with cocoa powder? That way I don't have to have malitol, I can use splenda. Thanks

[Mother]

I'm not sure how one would go about making their own almond type bark with cocoa powder. That might be a good knowledge to have as I could use it for carob powder also.