In advance of my class on gummy techniques, several members of Capital Confectioners have been trying to help me get enough hot plates to use to melt the gummy during the class.
I just tested Wilton’s Chocolate Pro, borrowed from one of the folks from the club, to see if it would work.
It does not. After over ten minutes, the gummy mix was barely getting shiny, let alone melting into liquid. In ten minutes on the stove, I could have cast a bunch of molds already (albeit with lots of bubbles in the gummy still).
Similarly, another club member tested her mini crockpot and failed to melt gummy.
So, for the record, low-temperature heating devices like these do not generate enough heat to make gummy treats at home. A standard electric hot plate does, however (in fact the one I bought needs to be kept on “Warm” or else it is too hot). To be fair, neither small crockpots nor this Wilton pot were designed to make gummy and it is possible they work perfectly well for their intended purposes, although the person who loaned me the Wilton pot has said several times that she does not like its performance for chocolate either.
Get a small non-stick pot and use a stove, or hot plate if you need to be portable. Then you can use that pot for other purposes as well.
The basic gummy tutorial is here.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: After posting this I went to rescue the gummy and put it in a proper pot. In attempting to gently scrape the Wilton pot with a silicone spatula, the handle started to bend at the point where it juts out from the pot. I quickly realized that it would be downright dangerous to scrape thick melted chocolate out the same way.
Therefore I am updating this to say I don’t care if it is good at melting chocolate or not: based on what just happened, I would deem this product dangerous and should not be purchased by anybody for any purpose.
Pot handles should not bend! How did this ever get through basic safety screening? I’m rather shocked, to be honest!
