hi Magrietha, where in SA do you live? maybe i could help you out, i also live in SA..

Hi, I live in South Africa and have been looking for cocoa butter, I cannot find it anywhere in South Africa, by looking for it on the internet at least, so I will probably have to stick to the colored white chocolate.

The colouring should not be affecting the taste. You need fat soluble coluring, not water soluble colourings. I have only ever seen fat soluble colours in powder form. If adding colour to white chocolate, you can temper before or after you add the colour, just make sure the chocolate is in temper before painting your moulds.

PS: I often use coloured white chocolate to give some colours a better pop than cocoa butter on the finished product.

You can buy colored cocoa butter also, ready to use. We sell it at Qzina, as well as just the colors, and we also sell plain cocoa butter in small wafers. Ultimately the best looking product will come if you can spray it. Many use simple heated paint sprayers, and build a curtain around your spray area as the fine powder goes everywhere.If you live outside North America, any chocolatensupplier should also carry butter, or a bakery distributor.If you tell me exactly where you are I can check with our export Dep't in Antwerp to suggest a likely distributor.

This question is also very important for me. I live in South Africa and really cannot seem to get hold of cocoa butter, so some tempered, colored white chocolate will do? Do you temper before or after you add the coloring? I tried this before and I were not too successful I also found that the powdered coloring affected the taste of the chocolate. Was I just using too much coloring? Does it happen with the colored cocoa butter?

You dont have to temper the cocoa butter, but you do still need to temper the chocolate if you want a nice finish. Chef Rubber has amazing colored cocoa butters.

Ok thanks. I used oil colors and a few of them didn't demold correctly, so I'll try to get some powder colors.One other question: I found a site that sells cocoa butter. White chocolate is much more easily available, but if I got cocoa butter would I still have to temper it?Thanks!

Thanks! I have oil-based colors. Will they work?

Hello everyone!

I'm new to working with chocolate, so sorry if this is an obvious question. I'm about to get some polycarbonate molds and I want to experiment with coloring them. I understand that the usual process is to paint a small amount of colored cocoa butter into the cavities. Where I live white chocolate is much more easily available than cocoa butter. Could I paint colored white chocolate into the molds instead of cocoa butter? Do I need to temper the white chocolate if I am just using it to pain the mold?

Thanks!

updated by @thomas-t: 04/11/25 09:27:36