How to color almond bark (without it seizing or turning muddy)

Use oil-based color only

Almond bark and candy melts are mostly fat and sugar. Water-based gel and liquid food coloring add water, which makes the coating seize into a thick, grainy paste. Use colors made for chocolate: oil-based candy colors, or powdered colors dispersed in a little melted cocoa butter.

Start from the right coating

Dye can only darken and shift a color. It can’t make coating lighter. Vanilla almond bark is a warm cream, not white, so very pale or icy colors may need bright white candy melts or a white candy color. Very dark colors like navy, black or burgundy take a lot of dye from a light coating, so start those from something darker.

Chocolate bark is a warm brown that reflects almost no blue light. Purples and blues mixed from it turn muddy, so start those from vanilla, or from red or black candy melts. Deep colors have their own guide, and so do pastels.

How many drops per ounce?

It depends on the brand and the color, and bottles vary. As a starting point, 1 to 3 drops per ounce of coating gives a pastel to a mid tone for most oil-based colors. Deep colors can take far more. Keep heavy dosing under about 10 drops per ounce: past that, oil-based color can thicken the coating and taste bitter.

The chart is a prediction for one brand’s bottles. To get exact counts for your own dyes, mix a test swatch once per color and measure it. Coco Match’s calibration does this in about 15 minutes.

• 1 drop per oz
• 2 drops per oz
• 4 drops per oz

Melt, thin, then color

1. Weigh the coating. Drop counts only repeat when the amount of coating does.
2. Melt gently, in 30-second bursts at half power in the microwave or over low heat, stirring until smooth.
3. Stir in thinner if you use it. About 1 tablespoon of coconut oil per 12 ounces is typical.
4. Add dye a little at a time and stir for a full minute so there are no streaks.
5. Test dip one treat and let it set before dipping the batch.

If the bowl goes thick or grainy along the way, here is how to tell what happened.

Let the color develop

Dyed coating keeps deepening for about 10 minutes after mixing, and set coating looks a shade different from melted. Always judge a color from a set test dip, in daylight, rather than from the bowl.

Melt lightest to darkest

When a batch has several colors, melt and dip them from lightest to darkest. One bowl then carries the least color forward, and you wash up less.

Getting the same color next time

Write down the coating, its weight, the thinner and each drop count, and weigh everything next time. Better still, save the recipe: Coco Match keeps each color’s exact coating blend and drops per ounce, then rescales them to your next order.