Ping Ping King

If you want there to be no disappointments in your attempts to make chocolate candy, then you should opt for tempering machines because tempering by hand may lead to failures even if there is a slight deviation in temperatures during the process. Being automated, these machines have a microprocessor to do this job accurately as well as keep the chocolate tempered for longer hours. But the disquieting factor with tempering by hand is that accurate maintenance of temperatures needs a lot of patience.

The growth of the billion-dollar chocolate industry is highly promising. But even in this modern age, there are traditional customers who only want handmade chocolates instead of the products churned out by chocolate tempering machines. Artisan-chocolatiers cater to this segment. Handmade chocolates involve manual tempering like tabliering, preferred by these artisans. Tabliering was developed in France and the chocolate is cooled on a heat-absorbing surface like a marble-slab in tabliering.

Moisture poses the threat of “seizing” chocolates during tabliering and to avoid this, the equipment used must be dry. “Seizing” makes the chocolates lumpy and not fit for dipping and molding. Rapid over-heating and freezing may also cause “seizing”.

Chocolate is cut into thin strips and placed on the upper pan of a double boiler. Other utensils include a knife, a chopping board, a spatula, a mixing bowl, a thermometer to measure low temperatures (like 82F) and a cookie sheet and must be pat dried with a paper towel.

Boil water on medium heat in the lower pan of the double boiler so that the strips in the upper pan reach their melting temperature of 108-115F slowly with constant stirring. The melting point of each variety of chocolate differs. Transfer this molten chocolate or the mush into a mixing bowl, always focusing on avoiding moisture. While pouring, the melted chocolate must flow smoothly and not be lumpy.

2/3 of this melted chocolate is separated and worked upon a marble slab with a spatula for cooling to a temperature of 80-82F; while you ensure that the temperature on the remaining 1/3 chocolate is 100F.

Then both the 2/3 and 1/3 of the mush are mixed and worked together till the whole cools to 80-82F. Next, ensure that reheating of dark chocolates is done up to 88-90F, semi-sweet chocolates up to 86-88F and milk chocolates to 82-84F. Your tempering is over and successful if the mush hardens around the tip of a knife into a glossy coat, after dipping it and letting dry for 5 minutes. Then you go to the next processes of dipping and molding.

You should repeat tempering if there has been a change in holding temperatures. One advice: the chocolate can stay tempered longer if it’s set on a heating pad while you’re working.