i want to start making more things out of modeling chocolate and also want to start enrobing my wedding cakes in white modeling chocolate instead of fondant (not that i don't love fondant...i do!)

so i tried making modeling chocolate out of a nice quality dark chocolate and it came out VERY hard...like almost impossible to knead, and then when i finally got it soft, it was getting everywhere and turned into this big old mess.

my friend said it was because i used good chocolate (scharffen berger 62%) which has more cocoa butter and that i should use the cheap stuff which has more palm oil.

i can't seem to find a lot of literature on this...does anyone have any suggestions? i like to use high quality ingredients (hey, who doesn't?) so if i can avoid candy melts and use real chocolate, all the better.

I don't use "high quality" chocolate, but I don't use candy melts either. I use the baker's block chocolate and it works great. I can't afford the good stuff but I'm not crazy about candy melts .

thanks- i think that is a good direction for me to start in.

i went to a demo by mike mccarey and he says he uses ghiradelli white chips.

i tried making white modeling chocolate with callebaut white chocolate and a little more corn syrup than normal- flexibility was great, but the fat (cocoa butter) separated from the mass and got all over my hands. after i cleaned it up and continued kneading it worked okay but i am guessing this is why the lower quality chocolates work better. yay! i learned something!