Ok, I'm thinking of taking the chocolate plunge. Any good tutorials I should view? Or good articles that offer step-by-step instructions?
Thanks

Try doing a search on youtube for chocolate candy making or candy melts and see what comes up. I am much more of a visual learner than a read instructions learner.

Also, do you have a cake/candy supply store near you? The store I use has a class once a month or so that goes over the basics. I swear I learned more from that class than any book I've looked at.

But if you are still looking for a book, the Wilton candy making basics book was what I bought when I first started. It doesn't give you a whole lot of information, but it's enough to get to you started.

I never thought about youtube, thanks!
Unfortunately, my cake teacher is hanging up her apron, so I don't know where I can find a candy class. Maybe Michaels has them, but I wasn't too impressed with their other classes.
Other book suggestions?
I really like dark chocolate. Is it harder to work with?

I work strickly with candy coating. I should probably one of these days figure out how to temper but with two little kids, I'm sure one of them will interupt me while I'm trying to temper chocolate, and it will just be a big ol mess. So in answer to your question, no dark chocolate coating is not at all more difficult. I work mainly with milk and dark. Every now and then I'll do something with white chocolate, but it's not often, and I have found that white is harder to work with.

The wilton website has a bunch of candy receipes/tips/suggestions on it as well..

Let's see what else can I tell you. Oh, the Wilton candy melts are pretty gross. A cake supply store should have melts that aren't wilton, give those a try. I started out buying just the 1lb packs, but now buy the 5lb packs since it's cheaper. If you want to start molding your chocolate, don't use soap on your molds. It's ruins them. Just rinse with hot water and a soft towel.

OHH, the most important thing is to not get ANY water in your chocolate. Not even a drop. So if you want to flavor it, or color the white chocolate, you have to use the appropriate product for chocolate. Lorenn's oils work fabulous with chocolate. Wilton makes a candy coloring. It's VERY similar to the cake colorings in terms of box design, bottle design. So read the box carefully. Additionally, once I took the bottles out of the box, I used a sharpie to indicate they were candy colors. Since I make cupcakes as well, I have the cake colors sitting in my pantry. I didn't want to mix the two up, so I sharpied the candy ones.

The best thing to do would probably just buy a few things to get started, and just do it. Ask questions as you go.

What about doing a search on Amazon for a good book on the subject, there are loads out there.

I'm glad I spotted this question as I'm about (in the next week or so) to embark on trying that myself. I have a cake in two weeks that I want to do some chocolate decorations with molded chocolates. I haven't tried it before either. I'll check out youtube. Good idea. I'm more of a visual learner.

Thanks from me, too!

Lisa

Thanks so much. We just tried out some candies tonight. They were so yummy! I picked up some non wilton brand melts and strawberry filling at the cake store.
I'm having a hard time leveling the bottom. They were pretty wonky, but besides that, it was super easy.