How does one thin chocolate?? I am making cake balls for a co-worker and she asked to have a little less chocolate on the outside. Is there a way to thin the chocolate down before I dip it?

i've done this before. i used cocoa butter.

just add in a bit at a time, and see how it goes, and stop when you get the consistency you want.

HTH.

Use high quality chocolate with cocoa butter percentage of somewhere around 35%. This will naturally melt to a much thinner consistency than most chocolate.

Do not use water as that will make it sieze.
Do not use buter as butter has water in it and will make it sieze to a lesser degree, making it thicker, not thinner.
Do not use shortening as it will make it taste like crap.

Anything else you do find that will make it thinner will also, most likely, make it unable to set up on the cake ball. So I think your best choice is the high quality chocolate.

i beg to differ on the problems setting up cake balls by thinning the chocolate with something else (in my case it was the cocoa butter).

i didn't have much choice here, ghirardelli or the likes are not commonly available where i live. so i have to make do with what you call, slightly inferior chocolates.

i've made cake balls few times, and i've done them once by thinning the chocolates with CB, and it set up nicely. just my experience.

There's no difference of opinion here, mclaren. Cocoa butter doesn't fall into the "something else" category because it's actually the thing that makes the higher quality chocolate, with the higher Cocoa butter content I mentioned, work.

My post was not to contradict yours as you posted while I was typing my post.

if you are using candy melts (wafers) you can buy something called paramount crystals and put about 1/2 tsp in melted chocolate and stir until disolved...add more if needed.

oh, i'm sorry about the misunderstanding artscallion, i thought you were responding to my post.. a thousand apologies...

I use paramount crystals to thin my chocolate. Will never use anything else!

You can use oil--especially for chocolate fountains--I'm not saying it's first choice for making bonbons but you sure can use it. It cuts down on that super hard crispness that is not so fun to eat. Yes paramount crystals work great.

Love the Paramount Crystals but also have used a few drops of vegetable oil.

Thank you for all of your help! I assume you can buy paramount crystals in cake/candy making stores????