Instructions

1. Go to a fine chocolate boutique or gourmet grocery store to choose chocolate for baking and making candy.

2. Find the area where the store stocks blocks of baking chocolate.

3. Check each chocolate's percentage of cacao, or cocoa, which tells you how dark and bitter the chocolate will be. Most recipes call for semisweet chocolate, which has 60 percent to 70 cacao. If a recipe calls for milk chocolate, find chocolate with less than 60 percent cacao; if it calls for dark chocolate, you want more than 70 percent.

4. Read the ingredients list for each chocolate with the desired percentage of cacao. The label should have no more than five ingredients. Cacao, cocoa butter and sugar should be the top three ingredients. Set aside any chocolates that include non-cocoa butter fats or processed sweeteners; these additives reduce the quality of chocolate.

5. Check the chocolate's relative sheen. Shiny chocolate is better than dull chocolate, which usually contains wax.

6. Ask a store clerk to provide samples of your top two or three chocolate candidates. Hold the chocolate in your mouth for ten to fifteen seconds to determine which has the smoothest texture and melts most quickly in your mouth. This is the higher-quality chocolate and the one that will taste best.