Tempered chocolate

Coating, enrobing. Molded items, decorations.

Only if it is poured on icecream and hardenes again.

If it is poured straight as a coating over a cake or used to pipe out,=20 create decorations, yes.

As an ingredient in a recipe, no.

Chocolate is already tempered when you buy it. You just need to retemper it if you use it to put a coat on something,=20 or make molded items.

If you need more info:

Sincerly,

C=3D=A6-)=A7 H. W. Hans Kuntze, CMC, S.g.K. (_o_)

, chefcmcchef.com"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it Happened"_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/=20

Try

rec.food.chocolate

and/or

alt.food.chocolate

Hi,

What is tempered chocolate? What do you have to do to retemper?

Fran=E7oise.

"H. W. Hans Kuntze" wrote:

Tempering chocolate for baking is pretty much a waste of time. The process of tempering makes chocolate shiny, with a nice snap when bitten into. Clearly, when mixed in a cake batter, those attributes are not what we're seeking! :) Tempering is generally done for dipping and candy making. You can pipe tempered chocolate onto parchment and let it set and it should harden at room temp. You can do this to make decorations for a dessert, garnishes, etc. Other than that, there's no need to temper it for baked items or mousses and such, and you also don't need to temper it to pour it over ice cream.

kimberly

What is tempered chocolate? What do you have to do to retemper?

Françoise.

Tempering is a function of 3 interrelated factors: Time, temperature and agitation. Although most directions for tempering focus on the temp, the time and stirring are important too. This means that even if you religiously follow all the steps to get the right temps, you may not have a good tempered chocolate yet. This isn't a failure...it just means that the time and agitation requirements have not yet been met. Stirring a little longer may be all it takes to do the trick. You'll need some good quality, tempered chocolate. We're not talking Hershey bars here. It should be one consistent color, dark and shiny. You can temper any amount you like, because leftover tempered chocolate can be reused! Yay!

You'll need a 4 quart heat proof bowl, preferably stainless steel, along with a rubber spatula, an instant read thermometer, and...if you like...a fan.

Set aside 1/5 of the chocolate in one or two large pieces. Chocolate the remaining chocolate into small pieces (no larger than 1/2") and place in the bowl. Warm the chocolate slowly. It shouldn't register much more than 100*f when it is entirely melted. You can do this by setting the bowl in a large skillet of barely simmering water. Stir frequently at first, and then constantly after it is 3/4 of the way melted. Remove from the heat and stir

1-2 minutes. If not completely smooth, return to the heat and stir. If the temp exceeds 100*f when you remove it after melting, stir until it reaches 100*f. Drop in the reserved chunks of chocolate and stir them around until the chocolate registers 90*f. The way this works is, as you stir, you are simultaneously cooling the melted chocolate and melting the surface of the tempered chocolate. As the temperature reaches 91*f, the stable cocoa butter crystals from the surface of the chunks mingle with the melted chocolate, creating more stable crystals. When there are enough of these stable crystals, the chocolate is "in temper", or tempered. The object is not to melt the chunks, but to use them to provide the stable crystals. To test for temper: Drizzle some chocolate on a knife blade (or a piece of waxed paper). Set the test chocolate in front of a fan. If it sets within 3 minutes and hardens without streaks or a dull finish, it's tempered. If it is still soft after 3 minutes, it is not tempered yet.

Another method involves starting fresh, by melting all of the cocoa butter crystals completely. To do this you'd follow much of the same steps, especially in the beginning, but you'd bring the chocolate up to 115*f to melt the crystals, and cool it to 85*f to start the seed crystals forming. You'd then bring it back up to 91-93*f, and your chocolate would be tempered.

Hope this helps, kimberly