HOW TO TEMPER CHOCOLATE

Many people like chocolate. We can find chocolate dessert on a menu of each café and restaurant. But if not, the owners of a restaurant think about how to make delicious chocolate dessert and delight their guests. There are many ways to add chocolate to a dish. One of them is temper chocolate and make amazing and beautiful glossy surfaces on the cookies or other things.

The process of tempering chocolate is not very difficult. It can be made on the stove using a casual pot, or you can use a special tempering machine giving the opportunity to regulate temperature, set the timer. But in both cases, the key principles are the same: even heating and cooling to the particular temperature that depends on the type of chocolate. Here we are going to go through these key principles to make perfect chocolate for your dessert.

The main goal of the tempering is to make smooth, glossy, evenly colored, and snappy chocolate. To reach it, you need the following things: chocolate, a bowl, a pot with water, and a cooking thermometer, or you can use a special tempering machine that is equipped with a water tank and chocolate tanks above the water as well as a knob for heating regulation. But we recommend using a thermometer for the tempering machine as well because there are variations with real temperature.

In two words, tempering is re-establishing cacao butter crystals. When you heat cocoa butter, it changes its crystal form. There are 6 forms of crystals but only the 5th form has the best characteristics. Let’s go through an example for milk chocolate.

Step 1 (Heating). Heat the chocolate to 45°C (113°F). At this temperature, we will melt all 6 forms of crystals.

Step 2 (Cooling). Cool the chocolate to 25°C (78°F). This step starts the formation of the 4th and 5th forms. Small “seeds” of crystallization appears at this temperature that will grow and make small crystals.

Step 3 (Tempering). When the crystals are formed, you need to raise the temperature to 30.5°C (87°F). At this temperature, crystals of the 4th form will melt and only the 5th form will leave. Don’t heat the chocolate higher this temperature because it will destroy all forms, and you will need to start all again from the very beginning. Each chocolate has its own temperature for tempering. Using the temperature in the table, you will be able to temper all kinds of chocolate.