My chocolate seized — what now?

Melted chocolate is a suspension of sugar and cocoa particles in fat. Introduce a very small amount of water — a drop from a wet spoon, steam from a bain-marie, a splash of extract — and the sugar particles dissolve at their surfaces and glue together into a stiff, grainy paste.

That is why chocolate is so violently sensitive to a little water and completely fine with a lot: with enough liquid, the sugar dissolves fully and the mass becomes a sauce.

Add more liquid, not less. Roughly one tablespoon of boiling water, cream or milk per 100g of chocolate, stirred in vigorously, will bring it back to a smooth fluid mass.

What you have then is a chocolate sauce, not melted chocolate. It cannot be tempered, cannot be used for coating and will not set hard. That is the honest limit of the rescue.

Chocolate sauce over ice cream or pudding. The base for a hot chocolate. Stirred into a brownie or cake batter, where the extra liquid is unproblematic. Whipped with more cream into a soft ganache.

None of these is a consolation prize. Adjusting the plan is much faster than trying to recover a batch that has already changed state.

Dry every bowl, spatula and thermometer completely. Use a bain-marie where the bowl clears the water and the pan is not boiling hard — steam condensing on the underside of a lid and dripping back in is the classic cause.

Use oil-based flavourings rather than alcohol or water-based extracts. And if a recipe wants both chocolate and a liquid, add the liquid deliberately and all at once rather than letting it arrive accidentally.