A real fun way to have an enjoyable family evening while eating some good food is to break out a chocolate fountain – maybe it should just be called a chocolate funtain :). The chocolate fountain has flowing cascading chocolate that is pumped to circulate through the machine up to the top where it falls down and that’s where the fun starts. You can dip anything under the flowing curtain carwash of velvety chocolate and enjoy the tasty treat you just created. Some of the fun things to dip are strawberries and other fruit slices. That’s like creating chocolate covered strawberries in your own kitchen.
You can use a million other items to dip in the chocolate fountain. Pretzels, cookies, Nilla Wafers and so much more. A quick trip down the cookie aisle at your grocery store will land you at least a dozen different varieties of things to dip. The fruit section will give you ideas from kiwi to apple and orange slices. Those have the most common categories covered, but that doesn’t have to stop you, does it? No way. You can get way more creative that that and find a bunch new things to have covered in chocolate.
Clean up
Cleaning up a chocolate fountain can look like a daunting task, as almost everything is covered in chocolate and it starts to dry on everything. Don’t despair, this can be fun too. First of all, if you haven’t quite gotten enough chocolate while it was running, then you can sneak some more and most likely no one will be watching since they likely abandoned you to do all the hard work. It may be easiest to plug it back in and heat it up again. That will enable you to melt off more chocolate and pour it off into a Tupperware container to be used next time. When you get down to the cleaning use really hot water (be careful not to burn yourself) and the hot water will melt the chocolate very nicely. Many of the parts of a chocolate fountain can go in the dishwasher, but not all of them. Some of the components needs to be hand washed.
Chocolate Fountain Troubleshooting
Here are some of the most common troubles with chocolate fountains.
1. Chocolate is too thick and won’t cascade
It’s quite disappointing when you plug in your chocolate fountain and the chocolate just won’t flow at all. This is the most common problem and it doesn’t appear to have a simple solution, but it really is an easy fix. You need to add more vegetable oil. I know it looks like you’ve already added a ton but that really is the most simple and easy solution. Slowly add more oil until it begins to flow. The chocolate must be fluid enough to actually cascade down and create the tremendous look
2. Chocolate is too runny
If the chocolate is too runny, it’s likely that there is too much oil. The only solution to that is to add more chocolate or almond bark to melt down. If it is extremely runny, it may be simpler to start over, but normally adding extra chocolate will solve your problem fast. Take the chocolate (chips or bar) or almond bark and microwave it until it’s soft enough to be added to the chocolate fountain. Also check if the heater is running too hot and switch that to ‘fountain only’ for a few minutes.
3. Chocolate won’t stay liquid
If you started off OK and the chocolate starts to clog up and the fountain begins to churn harder and harder, then it’s very possible that you don’t have the heater turned on. There are usually 2 settings, one for heat and churn, and another for churn only. If the heat is off, turn it on, wait for a bit and then try again.
Enjoy the chocolate fountain – that’s Fun Eating!
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