I received quite a few comments and emails on the candle making experiment. Without going into addressing each question and suggestion, here is a follow-up...
Pulling this off while still maintaining some sort of 'culinary value' is possible, but with some severe limitations.
First of all, it was naive of me to think a water-based gel candle would work. There needs to be fuel for the flame to survive. Since candle wax itself is a fuel and is categorized as a lipid, no other modifications need be made for a wax candle... however, who wants to eat wax... even edible wax. No culinary value here.
A water-based gel candle can possibly work if there is fuel incorporated into it. More than one of you implied that there should be at least 80% fat (or oil) for this to work. The candle above was made with ras al hanout scented apple gel (a fluid gel made from gellan) that had argan oil emulsified into it. I used no where near 80% oil and the emulsion was already unstable. This flame burned for a bit longer than the previous experiments before fizzling out, but it was no where near successful. Besides, this candle is not fully in solid form, and the melting effect is impossible.
The only real way to accomplish this is with an all saturated fat candle. I mentioned that we achieved success some time back with a butter candle. A couple of people also mentioned rendering foie gras fat or infusing the flavor into a fat. Both of these open small doors of possibilities. It is my belief that these candles would indeed work... but you are limited to a candle made of pure flavored fat. There is only a small amount of culinary value there.
Other suggestions of utilizing alcohol within or even possibly a gelled alcohol... but that may just completely burst into flame. Don't ever go near the stove after using antibacterial gel on your hands or you will find out why this is not a good idea.
There was one suggestion that really sparked my interest (although I have not tried it). Use tapioca maltodextrin to turn a fat or oil into a powder. Compress that powder into a candle form around a wick. Light the wick. The question is whether or not the TM will allow the oil or fat to revert back to a liquid state and thus melt.
This should encompass most of your ideas. The candle is temporarily dropped.