Chocolate Tempering – what is it and why does it matter?

Tempering chocolate is a great way to professionalise your chocolate creations. Tempering allows crystallisation through stabilising the temperature of the chocolate, preventing blooming, cracking and gives a smooth and glossy texture. If you’ve ever felt the ‘snap’ of a good quality chocolate when you bite into it – guaranteed it has been tempered. If you’re planning on baking your chocolate into cakes, brownies or cookies, you won’t need to temper it; however, tempering makes a great base for chocolate strawberries and pralines.

What do you need?

High quality coverture chocolates is always best for tempering. Some other great tools to use for chocolate tempering include a flat spatula, a kitchen thermometer, a flexible silicon spatula and a heat-resistant bowl for double boiling.

Tempering Tips

When tempering, the easiest way to work with your coverture chocolate is to roughly chop it or use feves (chocolate disks or buttons) for easy, even melting. Another tip is to store your chocolate in a dark, dry place – not the refrigerator – you want the chocolate as close to its natural temperature as possible to avoid blooming.

What is Chocolate Blooming?

If you store chocolate incorrectly, it can be prone to blooming – a grey and dull film spreading over the chocolate, which occurs when the fat of the cacao separates from the chocolate.

How do you temper chocolate?

Pop your just over half of your roughly chopped chocolate (or feves) into your heatproof bowl over softly rolling water – not boiling (this created a technique called a ‘double boil’). You want the chocolate to reach 48 degrees in this time.
Put the remainder of your chocolate to the side in a smaller bowl.
When your chocolate has melted, add the remaining chocolate to your bowl and melt. Cool down the chocolate to 28 degrees.
Remove from the heat and use instantly, as the chocolate will harden.
If you like, pour out your chocolate onto a marble slap and use your flat spatula to push it into a flat ‘bar’ shape.

It’s that easy.

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