How To: The 100's Infinity Chocolate Chips

It's beginning to look a lot like a post-apocalyptic dystopia!  

The holidays may not seem like the ideal time for a series about a grim and gritty radiation-soaked future, but it is prime binge-watching season, and I've got one more show to add to your Netflix queue. In fact, The 100's third season came to Netflix this month, so it's the perfect time to get caught up before its fourth season premiere next February.  

I've had a hard time convincing friends to give the series a go, no matter what I pitch: Space station politics!  Trial by combat!  Mad scientists in underground bunkers!  That guy from Lost that you loved!  Admittedly, the first few episodes are a little rough, especially if you have little patience for the usual YA fare that the CW is known for.  But somewhere between the middle of the first season and the beginning of the second, I realized this show had gone from guilty pleasure to no-guilt pleasure.  Like Halo Top ice cream (please, no one ruin Halo Top ice cream for me).

I don't say this lightly, but this might be the best successor we currently have to Battlestar Galactica.  It's exciting, edge-of-your-seat sci-fi, using its backdrop to explore politics and moral relativism during times of war.  And I regularly find myself impressed with the production value on display for what I'm sure is a pretty minuscule budget.  Give The 100 a chance; it just may surprise you.

Of course, with a post-apocalypse setting, there's not exactly a lot of appetizing food on display in The 100.  But it's not like that's stopped me before.  After season 3's Invasion of the Body-Snatchers-esque story line involving mind-controlling A.I. chips, I found my inspiration.

First, you'll need your own infinity chip candy mold.  Lucky for you, I just posted a candy mold tutorial here.

Now, let's talk about chocolate.  If most of your experience with chocolate comes from buying chocolate chips or Hershey's kisses at the store, you might not be aware of this, but there are different kinds of chocolate when it comes to candy-making.  And I'm not just talking about dark vs. milk, but about compound vs. regular.  

See, regular chocolate, like you're probably used to, is made using cocoa butter, and cocoa butter is a finicky little mother.  Basically, it needs to be tempered, which is a fancy word for bringing it up to a certain temperature when melting, and then down to a certain temperature (usually through "seeding" with pieces of un-melted chocolate) before re-hardening.  If it's not properly tempered, it may not harden properly, giving you dull chocolate instead of snappy, shiny chocolate, or, horror of horrors, the dreaded "bloom" - those white streaks in the chocolate you may be familiar with if you've ever left your package of chocolate in the car too long, then opened it after the candy re-hardened in your air conditioning.

Compound chocolate is a crafting chocolate made with oils instead of cocoa butter, the purpose of which is to avoid the hassle of tempering.  Just melt and use, no need for a thermometer or expensive tempering machine.  The trade off, of course, is in taste, and most people do prefer the real deal to compound chocolate.  However, if you can find a decent tasting compound chocolate, it is vastly easier to work with.

Either way, once you've melted (or tempered) your chocolate, here's how you'll go about using your molds.  First, you'll want to pour just a little chocolate into each mold - not enough to fill it completely.  Using a small pastry brush, paint the chocolate along all the sides of your molds to be sure they're completely covered.  This ensures that you'll have a smooth candy surface without any chocolate air bubbles.

Next, fill all of your molds to the top with chocolate.  Set the molds on a baking sheet, and tap the baking sheet hard on the counter several times.  Just like before, this is to ensure that an air bubbles hiding in the chocolate rise to the top.

Leave the chocolate to set, or refrigerate for a few minutes to help it along.  Once the chocolate has hardened, it should pop out of your mold, easy peasy.  Want to decorate?  I love coloring chocolate with metallic luster dust - it shows up really well on darker chocolates.  You can also use colored cocoa butter, or even royal icing, like the Easter bunnies you'll see all over come springtime.  Experiment and practice, and remember, even if they don't come out perfectly the first time, you can always eat your rejects. 

Now make like you're Jaha and share your fancy new chips around - everyone will be free of (hunger) pain in no time.