Chocolate for topping didn’t melt

The way you've described is precisely how I melt chocolate. If you have a double boiler, that's even better, but a bowl on top of a pot is fine too.

I can only think of two things that might be affecting the quality of your end result:

• Is the bowl big enough? The melting bowl should be larger than the pot if possible; you want the steam to be forced under and around it.

• Is the water temperature reasonable? You want it to be at a simmer. If it's rapidly boiling, the heat is too high.

As long as you keep those two things in mind, your chocolate should melt fine!

Edit: Thought of one other thing:

• It's possible that the steam is actually rising above the bowl, then hitting something (like your range), condensing and then falling back into the bowl as water. You shouldn't even be getting much steam with this method, but just in case, turn your fan on, to make sure you aren't getting any condensation.

I just reviewed the Nielsen Massey website and under their FAQ's they suggest that vanilla powder be used for "liquid sensitive products". The powdered nature of the vanilla would allow you to add it to melted chocolate without causing the melted chocolate to seize up. While vanilla has a unique and characteristic flavor of its own, it also helps to heighten and intensify other flavors, chocolate being one of them.

When chocolate seizes the emulsion of cocoa butter and cocoa powder has been interrupted by the introduction of a small amount of moisture. You either need to keep all liquids out of melted chocolate or add in a significant amount.

So...it only prevents it from seizing if you were going to be adding vanilla in extract form but no other liquids. It would not be something you add as a preventative measure.

Prevent the seizing through proper procedures in the first place:

• Do not allow water in the water bath to touch bottom of the bowl that you're melting chocolate in.
• The steam produced by the water is what's doing the melting so as long as wafts of steam are rising from the surface it's hot enough. The water doesn't even need to be simmering - cocoa butter starts to melt around 83-85 degrees F.
• Make sure all utensils are dry so water droplets aren't introduced
• Make sure the bowl you're using is large enough for the edges to flare out beyond the edge of the pot. If the edges just meet the edge of the pot then steam will condense on the edge and get into the chocolate causing it to seize.