Homemade "magic shell" ice cream topping (and dipping chocolate for fruits, candies and cookies)

This is not an item that you can use straight out of the pantry, but requires some microwaving. However, sometimes the convenience of a pantry item comes at a cost. Compare the ingredients' list for the commercial product vs. a homemade substitute.

Self-hardening chocolate ice cream topping

The commercial product's ingredient list:

Sugar, Sunflower oil, Coconut oil, Cocoa, Chocolate, Contains 2% or less of: cocoa processed with alkali, soy lecithin, milk, salt, vanilla.


My homemade version:

Chocolate Chips
Crisco-type Shortening, or Coconut oil


A little background for how I came to making my own dipping chocolate, for making chocolates, dipped strawberries, dipped brownie bites and cookies and for use as a homemade "magic shell".

I had a great aunt who was a part-time chocolatier. She sold her hand-dipped chocolates every November, to raise money to bring her son home from university on the east coast.

My great aunt was a widow, while still raising 3 children. Her son was accepted to a very good school on the east coast, with a scholarship to cover his tuition, supplies and housing. But there was little additional money for my great aunt to bring him home over the holidays, each winter. She had always been a fantastic home-baker. And her hand-dipped chocolates were well-known in their small community in Utah. If you were lucky enough to receive a box of her chocolates at Christmas, you considered yourself very fortunate. In the summer before her son went away to university, my great aunt's circle of friends suggested she take orders for her chocolates, to be delivered in November. She followed their advice. Every year, she was able to raise enough money for train fare home from Connecticut, as well as to buy gifts for the rest of her family.

When she was in her nineties it became important to her to pass down her recipes and method, to interested family members. She invited her grandchildren and a few cousins to come and learn. One of my second-cousins now makes her chocolates every Christmas, to honor her memory. As I always enjoyed baking and candy-making, I was sure to show up on her doorstep for "lessons",

She, of course, used a confectioner's grade of chocolate, called couverture. Couverture is a very high grade of dipping chocolate with at least 32% (and as much as 39%) cocoa butter. It's an extremely creamy, silky, delicious chocolate that has that perfect "snap" when broken or bit into. You can buy it both tempered and untempered. (Tempered will simplify candy-dipping.) My great aunt drove an a hour round trip to buy her chocolate, each fall.

When I asked about grocery store ingredients that I could more readily buy, she suggested the bars of chocolate sold in the baking section. Those chocolate bars have more cocoa butter than chocolate chips.

Although my great aunt's instructions were for using a tempered chocolate, for dipping hand-formed centers, I have found that I can make a respectable product, using a straight-forward melting with a fat addition.

And she used the double boiler for her chocolates. But for homemade confections, to be consumed fairly quickly, I've found the microwave to be a real time-saver.

Chocolate chips will work and make a perfectly acceptable product that you're just going to spoon over ice cream or dip strawberries into, and eat immediately.

If using chocolate bars or chocolate chips, you will need to add a fat to create a dipping consistency. (In the old days, housewives used food-grade paraffin wax -- even though it was "food grade", it's not recommended now, as it's indigestible to the human body.)

So, the extra fat my great aunt recommended, if I was going to use a grocery store bar of chocolate, was Crisco shortening. She said not use butter or margarine, when melting chocolate, as those two can contain enough water to cause your melted chocolate to seize. And using a liquid oil can result in a chocolate that doesn't harden as well. (However, liquid oil is useful to rescue slightly overheated chocolate.)

In recent years, it has become trendy to use coconut oil. It's a saturated fat, and below about 76 degrees F, it remains solid. So, coconut oil is also a good choice for making dipping chocolate at home. (Crisco, by the way, doesn't melt until about 117 degrees F.)

I choose to use Crisco, as I always have a can of it in the pantry for pie pastry, it is flavorless, and it works very well for making dipping chocolate.

How I make "magic shell", enough for about 4-6 bowls of ice cream (any leftovers can be used to dip fruit, brownie bites, edges of cookies/biscotti, or saved, in a sealed container, and reused at a later date)

you'll need:

4 ounces chocolate chips -- roughly 2/3 cup (semi-sweet). Do not use "chocolate-flavored" baking chips. They don't seem to melt as well, perhaps less or no cocoa butter. The better quality chocolate you use, the smoother your chocolate dip will be.

Milk chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, mint chips, vanilla chips or butterscotch chips may also be used, but they have a higher sugar content and therefore scorch more readily. To avoid scorching, use 1 tablespoon of fat per 4 ounces of chips, and microwave only on 20 to 30% power. After the first 2 melting intervals, reduce microwave time to 20 seconds, each. Much care needs to be taken with these other chips, to melt slowly in the microwave.

2 teaspoons crisco-type shortening, *or*  1  1/2 teaspoons coconut oil (for "magic shell" our family likes an additional 1 teaspoon of crisco, stirred in at the end of melting, for a thinner and slightly softer chocolate coating. But for dipping cookies, brownie bites, peanut butter centers, fudge, fondant centers or strawberries, the straight 2 teaspoons crisco for every 4 ounces of chocolate is what is recommended for a firm, crisp coating.)

• Melting chocolate slowly will give you the smoothest dipping chocolate. It could take 3 minutes or so, depending on quantity.

• It's important to melt chocolate slowly and evenly. If using a bar or chunk of chocolate, break it into 1/2-inch or smaller pieces. 
• A glass container will absorb the heat from the chocolate, and keep the chocolate stable.
• In an absolutely bone dry, microwaveable, glass container, place the chocolate chips or chunks, and fat. Melt in the microwave on the LOW to MED (30 to 50% power, or DEFROST) setting for 30 seconds. This first melting will basically just melt or partially melt the fat, and not the chocolate. Remove and stir the fat into the chips/chunks. 
• Microwave again, on LOW (about 20 to 30% power), for 30 seconds, then stir. Repeat this about 3 more times (or until the chocolate is almost melted). Stir between each melting, scraping down sides.
• Chocolate pieces that are indeed melted can retain their original shape. You will only know if the chocolate is not quite melted by finding lumps which do not stir out.
• When the product is near-completely melted (but not all the way), remove from the microwave and stir for about 30 seconds. This final stirring will incorporate any small amounts of semi-solid chocolate. 
• If you would like a thinner stream of melted chocolate and softer consistency, stir in an additional 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of Crisco (this is better for ice cream topping, than for dipping candies, strawberries or cookies, as it is slightly softer).
• Microwave at full power for about 8-9 final seconds. Stir. 
• Drizzle immediately over bowls of ice cream. It will firm up in about 30-60 seconds, depending on thickness. 

• Reduce or increase the quantity of both ingredients, as needed to make more or less, but keep the proportions of chocolate to fat. 
• Also, if you reduce the amount being made at any one time, remember that it will melt much more quickly than a larger amount.
• Melting chocolate is not the same as tempering chocolate, but works fine enough for homemade confections.
• Without tempering the chocolate, your final product is susceptible to fat bloom (the powdery white film that develops on chocolate, over time). Fat bloom takes a few days to appear, so this dipping chocolate is best for items that will be consumed soon. 

when the chocolate coating has a matte finish, it has hardened
(homemade blackberry-cheesecake ice cream underneath,
want to make blackberry sorbet later this week)

• Leftovers can be saved and reused. Melt at full power in 10 to 12 second bursts, stirring well, in between, scraping down sides of container. Do this a coupe of times, until thin and drizzle-able.

For a really gourmet, chocolate-aficionado treat, use bar chocolate, sold in the baking section of the grocery store. These chocolate bars have a higher concentration of cocoa butter than chocolate chips and melt more smoothly and are creamier in taste and texture.

Price comparison

So, using chocolate chips, bought on sale for $1.99/12 oz package (66 cents for 4 oz), and 2 teaspoons of shortening (estimate at less than 5 cents), 4 ounces of homemade "magic shell" costs about 70 cents. The name brand of self-hardening, chocolate ice cream coating sells for $2.00 for 7.25 oz., costing about $1.10 for 4 ounces. Hmmm, what would I rather eat, the less expensive, mostly chocolate version (the homemade one), or the more expensive, but less chocolate tasting, store-bought version?



An FYI about Crisco and other solid vegetable shortenings -- if you feel like your pie pastry is different than it used to be (10 to 15 years ago), but you are still following the exact same recipe, Crisco reformulated their product a few years back, as new information became available about trans fats. They wanted to be able to claim 0 g trans fats per serving (1 tablespoon), which actually means it has less than .5 g per serving (products can have up to .5 g per serving and still claim 0 g, rounding down). They changed their formula, and so this could explain why your pie pastry just doesn't seem the same as it once did. Other manufacturers of solid vegetable shortening wanted to follow suit, so it doesn't matter if you're using Crisco brand or a store brand. (information from livestrong.com)