Hang on now…

I know what you’re thinking: Everything I’ve ever heard about melting chocolate says you should never EVER let even a drop of water get into a pot of melted chocolate, so what’s this about heating chocolate along with a sugar-and-water syrup? It’s a very understandable concern. But the issue is one of proportion. Add a little tiny bit of water to melted chocolate and it combines with some of the sugar in the mixture to create a tiny bit of syrup. That tiny bit of syrup is sticky, and causes the bits of chocolate solids in the pot to clump together, turning the whole thing into a solid “seized” mass. Add a lot of water though, and you get a lot of syrup, which disperses evenly throughout the pot, preventing clumping. That is in fact how you save “seized” chocolate: add warm water (or milk or cream) to dilute the syrup and make the whole thing flow again.