Tempering Chocolate

If you want your chocolate recipes to have a lush shinny sheen, you need to properly temper the chocolate, otherwise it will be dull and spotty and not look appetizing. Tempering is a processes that pre-cyrstallizes the cocoa butter in the chocolate changing it into a stable cyrstalline form. Tempering ensures hardness, shrinking force, and gloss after it is cooled. The three factors that determine the finished tempered product are time, temperature, and movement.

Tempering Chocolate is more messy than hard but it does require careful attention to detail and there are some rules:

Rule 1: Never let water come in contact with the chocolate, it will make tempering impossible.

Rule 2: Use a Bain Marie to melt the chocolate, this is a technique where you place a bowl over a pot of hot water. This technique allows you to better control the temperature of the chocolate during tempering. It’s best to use a stainless steel bowl for the top of your Bain Marie.

Rule 3: Use a stone surface to work the chocolate during tempering if you can, it will evenly cool the chocolate and is easy to scrap clean while working the molten mass.

Rule 4: Use a reliable thermometer, temperature matters in this process.

Rule 5: Dark, Milk, and White chocolate all use the same tempering process but each require different tempering temperatures. I will provide the temperature profiles for all three chocolates.

Process

1. Mise en Place – have all your tools and ingredients ready before you start.
2. Fill a pot ~1/3rd with water and heat on stove.
3. Place a bowl on top of the pot ensuring that bottom of the bowl is above the pot’s water.
4. Add your chocolate to the bowl occasionally stirring as it melts and the chocolate reaches
   • Dark Chocolate: 50-55 C (113-122 F)
   • Milk Chocolate: 45-50 C (104-113 F)
   • White Chocolate: 45-50 C (104-113 F)
5. Pour melted chocolate onto a large flat surface (preferably stone) and using two stainless steel spatulas (one in each hand) work the chocolate around the stone until the temperature lower to:
   • Dark Chocolate: 28-29 C (82-84 F)
   • Milk Chocolate: 27-28 C (79-82 F)
   • White Chocolate: 26-27 C (77-79 F)
6. Place the cooled chocolate back in the melting bowl and put back on top of the hot water pot. Stir the chocolate as it reheats to:
   • Dark Chocolate: 31-32 C (86-89 F)
   • Milk Chocolate: 30-31 C (82-86 F)
   • White Chocolate: 29-30 C (79-82 F)
7. Your chocolate is now properly tempered and you can use it in your molds or over nuggets, or even for dipped teats, just remember not to let the chocolate in your bowl come in contact with water.
8. If the chocolate starts to cool too much in your bowl to work, set the bowl on the hot water pot until it loosens back up.
9. Once the left over chocolate hardens, you’ll have to re-temper it the next time you use it.