Our step-by-step guide gives you the essential tips everyone else skips.
No one is in a bad mood when they visit a chocolate factory.
And yes, I ate chocolate every day.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Every factory tour began with a chocolate tasting.
Id pass out samples and hold mine up, breaking it in half.
See how the surface of the chocolate itself is shiny, with no white blotches?
Simply Recipes / Eliezer Martinez
Thats the sign of well-tempered chocolate.
People listened as they savored their chocolate samples.
Then wed walk through the factory and Id point out the various equipment, including the tempering machine.
Bloomed, untempered chocolate.Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
I have no samples for you, but I do have knowledge.
Heres our tour of how to temper chocolate at home.
you could do it on the stove over a double boiler or in the microwave.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Simply Recipes / Eliezer Martinez
What Is Tempering Chocolate?
Chocolate is made up of sugar and cocoa solids from cocoa beans.
If you dont, the chocolate will be crumbly and mottled-looking (whats called bloomed).
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Imagine each cocoa butter crystal is a chair.
You want nice stacks of chairs, not chairs all thrown in a heap.
Have you heard of tempered glass?
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Both tempered glass and tempered chocolate are more resilient than their untempered counterparts.
You may have seen a similar phenomenon happening on chocolate that you melted and then let harden.
That powdery white film is cocoa butter thats leached out to the surface of the chocolate.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Bloomed chocolate is crumbly, doesnt melt smoothly in your mouth, and looks old or stale.
Its unattractive, and because it melts poorly, isnt as fun to eat.
Heres the easiest way to temper chocolate.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
There are a number of chocolate tempering methods, but what follows is called seeding.
You cheat by adding finely chopped, already tempered chocolate to a bowl of melted chocolate.
Then you stir, and the tempered chocolate seeds the melted chocolate with the desirable cocoa butter crystal shape.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
For this method to work, you need at least 4 ounces of chocolate thats still in temper.
If youre re-melting chocolate thats bloomed, youll need to verify to buy some tempered chocolate for seeding.
Youll also need an accurate scale to weigh your chocolate.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Pro Tricks for Tempering Chocolate
A lot of tempering how-tos stress reaching certain temperatures in the process.
Thats important, but its missing a few other key points.
Tip
The higher the cacao percentage, the trickier it is to temper the chocolate.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
This is because there are more cocoa butter crystals to get in line.
Luckily, the chocolate was free.
I was doing it all by the book and hitting the right temps, so where was I wrong?
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
I was rushingnot stirring enough and not letting the chocolate do its thing.
It wasnt until I was attempting to temper chocolate at a different job that I got it right.
A batch of homemade rocky road bark was our reward.
Simply Recipes / Melanie Tienter
Chocolate is a miracle food.
Enjoy your time tempering and it will reward you, too.
Tempering Chocolate in the Microwave
If you have a microwave, you are lucky.
Its a fantastic way to melt chocolate.
Here are modifications for using the microwave to temper chocolate.
you should probably start with tempered chocolate, which will be shiny and break with an audible snap.
If its powdery or white on the surface and crumbles when you cut it, this method wont work.
Place 12 ounces of the chocolate in a large glass or metal bowl.
Set the remaining 4 ounces of chocolate aside.
This way it’s possible for you to launch right into it once your chocolate is in temper.
Its best to melt the chocolate gently and steadily.
Microwave Method:On 50 percent power, microwave the bowl for 30 seconds.
Remove and stir with a silicone spatula.
This can take around 3 minutes, depending on your microwave.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
You want the tip to be submerged at least 1 1/2 inches.
You may need to tip the bowl a little to create a pool of chocolate thats deep enough.
You might feel like youre stirring for ages.
Be patient and itll pay off.
When the chocolate is getting close to temper, it will get thicker, almost tackier.
The chocolate at the edges of the interior of the bowl will start to harden.
In a few minutes, it should be hardening.
If its still wet, it’s not tempered yetkeep stirring.
Your tempered chocolate is now ready to use.
Too much heat and it will go out of temper!
What if your chocolate blooms as it sets?
This can happen sometimes, even hours later.
My advice is to pretend everything is cool and say nothing.
People like chocolate and ideally no one will notice.
Or use it for other recipes, like brownies or tortes, where youre not tempering.
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