The Fundamentals of Tempering by Hand
Shine, smoothness and snap are not the usual attributes of chocolates; you obtain these through tempering. Though conching refines chocolate particles to the tiniest grain, tempering will turn chocolates velvety fine. Tempering also keeps away the blooma state where chocolates become gritty and large white crystals rise and dot the surface of chocolates making them unattractive. Selling these chocolates will be nigh impossible.
Temperatures above 90F make chocolates lose the temper done by the chocolate makers from whom you purchased the chocolates so you’ll need to return the temper. You easily can do this with a chocolate tempering machine but in certain circumstances, like a power outage, knowing how to temper by hand may spell client satisfaction.
Tabliering, or the marble-slab technique, and seeding are the two existing manual tempering methods. Tabliering, a French export, uses a marble slab to draw heat from the melted chocolate. You cut one pound of chocolate into bits and melt them on a double boiler at medium heat so the chocolate don’t burn. Half of the melted chocolate is worked on the marble slab with a spatula to cool and thicken it. You gently blend in the other half until the desired consistency and coolness is achieved. You should maintain the tempering temperatures accurately using a good thermometer.
In the “seeding” method, you use tempered chocolate as a seed to temper the melted chocolate. Only three-fourths of the chocolate strips are melted on the double boiler; the remaining one-third is stirred in. You add the unmelted chocolate strips slowly into the mixture and stir it until everything thickens and is cooled. Again, keeping the same temperatures throughout will ensure a successful temper and a perfect finish to your chocolate.
Tempering by hand is difficult because of the fact that you’ll repeat temperingsometimes over and over againif you fail to maintain the right temperatures. Your working time will be distributed between making sure that tempers are ideal and designs are perfect.
If your chocolates are meant for both gifting and selling, you’ll need to produce consistent quality candies every single time you make them. A chocolate tempering machine will be very handy in this regard as it will take care of proper temperatures and ideal tempers every time you make chocolate candies.
