To think that chocolate candy making is trouble-free is foolhardy, but it’s easy to think so because all the items needed for making them are in your kitchen somewhere: thermometer, double boiler (or, if you want to improvise, a steel bowl and a pan), spatula, candy molds or cookie cutters, and the indispensable ingredient: dark, milk or white chocolate.
In truth, tempering is a complicated, intricate undertaking. Again, you’ll think otherwise because making the chocolate candy appears just as easy: you cut the chocolate bar into thin strips, you melt them in the double boiler or improvised double boiler, you pour into molds or cut into shapes with a cookie cutter after air-drying, and you serve. Oh, and while melting the chocolate, don’t forget to stir so the chocolate won’t burn. You can also choose to create fruit-filled candies by dipping them whole in the chocolate melt.
If the candies are meant for an honest-to-goodness commercial enterprise, then hold the thermometer near because you’ll be depending on it during temperature.
Shine, smoothness, snap and the creamy texture are not natural qualities of chocolates that’s why you should temper them as this will impart these features to make them saleable. During the heating, cooling and re-heating steps of tempering, right temperatures must be accurately maintained so as to ensure that the chocolates do not distemper or else, you risk doing the rigorous process all over again.
The temperatures at which dark, semi-sweet and white chocolates are tempered are different from each other. The fatty acids within the cocoa butter can form into six unique crystals which in turn are dominant at six different temperatures, hampering the proliferation of the type V crystals that you want if you’re not careful with temperatures.
If you’re a large-scale chocolate confectioner, you will really need a chocolate tempering machine. Artisanal chocolatiers are a different breed as their market demand tempering by tabliering though it is the most difficult tempering process. For the mass marketer however, the chocolate tempering machine relieves everyone from the hassles of manual tempering, particularly in keeping a close watch on temperatures as this task is done by a computer chip within the appliance. The best benefit is keeping chocolates tempered longer, practically overnight if necessary.
The art and science of manual tempering must be a skill that every chocolatier should have because the necessity to do so may arise suddenly. Tabliering is a method that uses a marble slab, or any stone or cold surface to absorb the heat from the melted chocolate. The alternate method, “seeding”, involves using non-melted chocolate bits as “seeds” to lead the way during crystallization.
Chocolates get distempered when temperatures aren’t maintained at accurate levels, requiring you to temper them again and again, turning manual tempering into a laborious, repetitive process.
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