Give Homemade Chocolate Bars A Paint Splatter Effect With Just 2 Ingredients

If you love making homemade chocolates, you're already experimenting with flavors and textures in your barks and bars — so why not add a splash of color, too? Take inspiration from the rare, viral chocolate bars you're seeing all over TikTok. It's actually easy to do with powdered food colors diluted in alcohol, and the paint-splattered effect is low stress because it's naturally messy and random. With your chosen colors scattered all over the candy surface, each piece is as distinctive as the next — no worries about trying to be exact.

Powdered food colors are vibrant and perfect for either dark or white chocolate. They just need to be diluted in a liquid containing the highest alcohol content that you can get your hands on for fast drying. A drop of water can seize tempered chocolate, so a high proof is necessary. Just as homemade limoncello needs a high-proof grain alcohol, so does your chocolate splatter dye. Vodka is good in a pinch, but 190-proof grain alcohol is even better if it's legal where you live. Another alternative is a cake maker's specialty alcohol, sometimes called rose spirit — a high-proof elixir with a hint of rose essence.

To put your own splashy mark on your chocolate bars or any other candy in a rubber silicone mold, you just need to mix small amounts of your favorite color with a few tablespoons of alcohol. Dip a clean paintbrush in the color mixture and flick it over your clean molds. One effective technique is to hold the loaded brush horizontally over the mold and lightly tap it with your other hand. Repeat with as many colors as you'd like. The alcohol will evaporate in 10 or 15 minutes, leaving the splashes of color behind. When the molds are dry, add your melted, tempered chocolate.

If you prefer to avoid alcohol, you can also mix gel or powdered food color into melted cocoa butter and use it the same way, flicking color where you want it. The cocoa butter technique is a little trickier because it will stay fluid for longer. There's more chance your colors might blend, but that could be another artistic outcome. There are no rules here; just some fun colors for your next chocolate project, like a slab of spattered chocolate almond bark.