11/11/2023 0 Comments Diy take five candy![]() When it comes to melting, skip the chocolate chips. Consider it your upper body workout for the day. This stirring process (aka agitation) both encourages the growth of chocolate crystals and ensures that the chocolate pieces are melting at an even rate. Dark chocolates don’t contain this extra milk fat, so the temperature at which we achieve temper is just a touch warmer, 91☏ to be exact.Īnother key to snappy tempering is to make sure to stir the chocolate aggressively. Because this melting temperature is so low, it’s easy to overshoot our target temp. Those fat molecules tangle up with those of cocoa butter to form an alloy that actually has a lower melting point than either of the crystals would have on their own. Why those different and highly specific temperatures? Milk chocolate contains milk powder ergo, butterfat. Instead of worrying about heating and cooling and heating again, we only have to worry about one target temperature. However, with the help of a good digital thermometer, careful use of a double boiler, and a whole heck of a lot of stirring, we can coax both milk and dark chocolate into a fluid state without forcing it to lose its temper by simply, but carefully, bringing it to its ideal tempering temp - for milk that means 88☏ and for dark that means 91☏. Sound easy? It is…if you have a professional tempering machine or you are ready and willing to put in a lot of time to practice (and clean up the inevitable mess…and you know how I feel about messes…). Then, we raise the temperature slightly to melt out just the bad ones. We then lower the temperature and agitate to grow new crystals, both good and bad. The traditional method of tempering requires that we melt the chocolate to a temperature at which all the crystals have melted. ![]() When we have a bunch of fives, the chocolate is referred to as being “in temper” - smooth, shiny, and delicious. If we have too many form six crystals, your chocolate will be overly viscous (aka thick and gloopy)…not ideal for dipping. When creating a chocolate bar or a chocolate coating for candy, we want a stable, shiny snap that doesn’t melt quickly in the hands, and that means maximizing form five while limiting one through four, which make chocolate either crumbly or gooey with a dull matte or grey finish (this is also called “bloom”). The fat molecules inside chocolate (aka, cocoa butter) can stack into said crystals in not one, not two, but six different configurations (see the illustration below). Just like candy-making itself, chocolate tempering is all about controlling crystals. Two, a tempered chocolate coating doesn’t melt on your hands or at average room temperatures, so you can store the candies on the counter without risking a huge mess. One, you get a snappy, professional-looking finish that looks way nicer than the dull matte finish you’d get from just haphazardly melting chocolate. Traditionally a complicated and fairly labor-intensive process, tempering is a necessary step for two reasons. Why? It all comes down to one word: Tempering. For many cooks, there is nothing more daunting in the culinary universe than making candy, especially the chocolate variety.
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