How much candy coating you need per treat

Coating per treat

These are the amounts Coco Match starts from. They are estimates for typical sizes, and yours will differ with the size of the treat and how thin your coating is. The last two columns are what to melt for one color, with the allowances explained below.

Why you melt more than you use

Two things take coating that never ends up on a treat.

• Drips. Coating runs off as you tap, coats the spoon and the stick, and lands on the parchment. About 20% is a fair allowance.
• The bottom of the bowl. You need depth to dip. Once the coating is shallower than the treat, you are spooning and scraping, and the finish suffers. Plan for about 4 ounces to stay behind in each bowl.

For a dozen cake pops that is 7.2 ounces on the pops, 1.4 ounces for drips and 4 ounces in the bowl: 13 ounces to melt, rounded up. A tall, narrow container such as a mug or a deli cup keeps the coating deep and leaves less behind than a wide bowl.

Every color is its own bowl

Three dozen cake pops in one color need about 30 ounces. The same three dozen split across three colors need about 39, because each bowl leaves its own 4 ounces behind. That difference is worth knowing before you quote a five-color order.

• Hot Pink
• Yellow
• Sky Blue

When colors share a starting point, dip the lightest first and dye the same bowl darker for the next. One bowl then does the work of two.

From ounces to packages

Almond bark is usually sold in 24 ounce blocks, and candy melts in 12 ounce bags. Work out the ounces for each color first, then add the colors that share a coating and round up to whole packages. Buying one spare bag costs far less than a second trip mid-batch.

Measure your own treats

Your cake pops are not everyone’s cake pops. To find your own number:

1. Put the bowl of melted coating on a kitchen scale and note the weight.
2. Dip six treats the way you normally do.
3. Weigh the bowl again, and divide the difference by six.

That figure already includes your drips, so it is the most honest one you can use. In Coco Match you can set the ounces for any treat, and the bowl sizes and drop counts follow.

Dye scales with the bowl, not the treats

Color is counted in drops per ounce of coating, so the dye goes by what you melt, not by what ends up on the treats. A 13 ounce bowl at 2 drops per ounce takes 26 drops, even though only 7.2 ounces leave on the cake pops. The basics guidecovers drops per ounce.