How to Use Dark Chocolate for Baking | Beginners Advice

At Tulip Chocolate, we have a range of chocolate products that come in multiple forms, such as blocks, chips, sticks, fillings, syrups, drink mix powder, and cocoa powder. In this blog post, we are going to talk about how to use dark chocolate for baking. But before we do, it’s important to understand that Tulip Chocolate has two types of chocolate: Couverture and Compound.

What is Couverture Chocolate?

Couverture chocolate predominantly consists of cocoa butter and chocolate liquor. Cocoa butter is the most expensive ingredient in couverture chocolate, making it more expensive than compound chocolate varieties. You can find couverture chocolate in various types, from milk chocolate couverture, white chocolate couverture, to dark chocolate couverture.

Unlike cooking chocolate or compound chocolate, couverture chocolate requires a tempering process in order to make it shiny and give it that “snap” characteristic when you break or bite into a couverture chocolate bar.

What is Compound Chocolate?

Compound chocolate substitutes the two main ingredients: it replaces cocoa butter with vegetable oil and chocolate liquor with cocoa powder. These ingredients make most compound chocolate more affordable and also much easier to work with, as it does not require a tempering process. It's extremely easy to use as well. Simply melt and incorporate it into your baked goods. Compound chocolate is the best option for beginners who are unfamiliar with the tempering process.

Baking with Dark Compound Chocolate

So, using dark compound chocolate for your baking needs is easy as it doesn’t require a tempering process. What you will need to decide on is how you will use chocolate in the baking process. Questions you will need to consider are:

- Will you use the chocolate to cover your cake or pastry?

- Will you use the chocolate as a filling in your baked goods?

- Will you use dark chocolate as a topping or decoration?

1. Using Dark Compound Chocolate to Cover Your Cakes & Pastries

You can either cover a cake completely with chocolate or dip parts of your ready-made pastry products into melted chocolate. Once you dip your pastries such as a croissant into the chocolate, it should harden within minutes in your refrigerator. Watch our melting chocolate video here to learn how to melt dark compound chocolate the right way. Use melted dark compound chocolate to completely coat your cakes and pastries to give them a rich chocolate flavor. Set aside to cool and harden.

2. Using Dark Compound Chocolate as a Filling

If you’d like to fill your baked goods with a chocolate filling then it will require you to chop your chocolate block into small pieces and melt them down. Once melted you can fill it up in a piping bag and pipe it into your pastry or cake products. You could also use dark chocolate to make a ganache. If you're curious about that, watch our chocolate ganache video here.

3. Using Dark Compound Chocolate as a Topping or Decoration

One of the ways to use dark compound chocolate blocks as a decoration is to shave them on top of a cake or pastry. Another is to pour the melted chocolate into molds, refrigerate it to solidify them, and place them on top of baked goods. Alternatively, you can make decorations by hand. Watch our video where we demonstrate how to make unique and beautiful chocolate decorations.

Tulip’s Dark Compound Chocolate for Baking

Tulip chocolate has several dark chocolate products in both compound and couverture chocolate. These are our dark chocolate varieties that can be used for baking:

Tulip Masterbaker Dark Compound 5KG Block

Tulip Dark Compound 1KG Block

Decor Dark Compound 1KG Block

Dark Compound Batons/Sticks 1.5KG

Dark Chocolate Filling Paste 1KG

Tulip Chocolate Coating - Black Velvet 5KG

Tulip Bittersweet Couverture Chocolate 1KG

Tulip 62 Dark Couverture Chocolate Coins 1KG

Tulip Dark Compound Chocolate Chips 2.5KG

As the above list shows, we have a lot of dark chocolate product variants that can be used for baking. Do you have a question about baking with dark chocolate? Feel free to leave us a comment below and one of our chefs will be happy to answer you.