You Only Need 2 Ingredients To Make Tasty Homemade Chocolate-Covered Espresso Beans

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Chocolate covered espresso beans have all kinds of applications at home. They're great as a bittersweet treat portioned into a ramekin and served alongside a charcuterie board. They zhuzh up those otherwise unadorned coffee seeds topping your DIY espresso martinis. And they're an extra fancy garnish for desserts like creamy hazelnut tiramisu. You can also make chocolate covered espresso beans at home with nothing more than their two titular ingredients.

You'll want to source decent espresso beans to begin with, being that you'll be consuming them whole. While the cheap stuff might be fine for grinding and blasting with hot water, this preparation is less adept at obscuring imperfections. The chocolate, that sole imperfection obscurer, should also be nice enough that you'd want to eat on its own. Dark, milk, and white chocolate have all been known to coat an espresso bean in their day. Those with a lower tolerance for bitterness will want to skew closer to the latter two, as the former will only enhance the bean's harsher notes.

Provided you obtain it in a solid state, you can melt most store bought chocolate varieties and ultimately get them back to a shell-like finish easily, but you'll need to work carefully. We've frequently used Lindt milk chocolate bars for candy-coating projects such as these with a high rate of success. First, mise en place your espresso beans and chocolate, plus a small, microwave safe bowl, a parchment paper-covered baking sheet, and plate or tray (it helps to use something that can fit in your refrigerator later).

Begin melting about half the bar for 15 seconds to start (a larger portion is harder to control), pause to stir, and continue microwaving in five second increments until the chocolate reaches a smooth consistency. Keep any errant drops of water away from your melted chocolate throughout, as they will cause it to seize. A bit of butter, instead, can help smooth over any rough spots, if necessary. You'll want to work fast after you melt slow. You can toss a few beans at a time into the melted chocolate, give them a quick swirl with a fork to coat, and remove them to the parchment paper-lined dish with the same utensil to set. An hour or so in the refrigerator will expedite the process before they're ready to use.