Tempered chocolate

Tempered chocolate

INGREDIENTS

To temper : Dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa solids), like Lindt, may be tempered.

METHOD

Make sure the bowl doesn't contact the water's surface while you slowly warm the chocolate over a basin of barely boiling water. When the chocolate reaches 48 degrees and has melted, remove from the fire while stirring constantly.

Pour two-thirds of the chocolate onto a granite or marble surface if using the tabling method. Using a scraper and palette knife, spread chocolate out to cool before quickly scraping it back together to begin crystallizing. Keep doing this until the chocolate begins to thicken.

Add the previously crystallized, thickened chocolate back to the heated mixture. Stir thoroughly until the chocolate reaches 26°C and the mixture is uniform.

When utilizing the seeding technique, add one-fourth of the weight of the melted chocolate in the form of grated or finely chopped tempered chocolate (for 500gm of chocolate, melt 375gm to 48C and seed with 125-130gm of grated tempered chocolate). Stir until 26C is reached, the chocolate is smooth, and all the chunks have dissolved. Add extra tempered chocolate bits if the temperature rises.

 Use a hair dryer or a hot-air cannon to slowly warm chocolate until it is of manageable consistency. Return the chocolate to the double boiler as an alternative.

In contrast to the luster of properly tempered chocolate, untempered and improperly tempered chocolate produces an ugly mottled, streaky appearance known as bloom.