Chocolate tempering

Chocolate is not only delicious, but it is also ideal for baking in the kitchen. For example, use it to make chocolates or cover your cake or pie with a delicious chocolate layer. To give a nice shine and even texture to the chocolate, you need to temper the chocolate. This is still a challenge for many home bakers. Read how to best temper chocolate in this blog!

Thanks to this technique, your chocolates, pralines and cakes will soon look like they were made by a real chocolatier! By the way, did you know? Chocolate consists of 3 mixtures: cocoa powder, cocoa butter and sugar.

What is chocolate tempering?

Chocolate tempering sounds complicated, but is really nothing more than melting chocolate and then bringing it to the right temperature. By melting the chocolate, the six crystal types present in cocoa butter reform. Of these crystal types, there is only one that makes the melted chocolate delicious, crisp and shiny. Each crystal type forms at a different temperature, which is why tempering is important! By heating the chocolate and letting it cool again, the other crystals disappear and the right one remains.

The melted chocolate must be just warm enough for that one crystal to do its job. Then on top of that, the crystals in dark, milk and white chocolate all need different temperatures to work. Chocolate tempering is no small feat, but by melting the right chocolate at the right temperature, everyone succeeds!

How and why tempering chocolate?

Chocolate tempering is an important step if you are going to make chocolates, peanut brittle or a chocolate bar, for example. If you skip this step and use only melted chocolate, you will get a different result. The chocolates do not shine, melt in your hand or the peanut butter bars have a grainy texture and sometimes turn white.

With or without thermometer

Tempering chocolate with a thermometer provides greater accuracy and the chances of going wrong are significantly less than if you temper chocolate without thermometer. When tempering chocolate without a thermometer, you do it more by feel and that doesn't always turn out well, because you don't know the exact temperature.

Sous vide

Sous vide is a technique in which food is cooked in a water bath at a constant, relatively low temperature for a long time. Sous vide is a French term that literally means "under vacuum. Chocolate tempering can also be done with the sous vide technique.

Heat water to 46 °C using a sous vide device
Chop the chocolate small and put it in a sous vide bag
Place the chocolate bag in the sous vide container and leave it in the water without air until everything is melted ( /- 5 minutes)
Remove the bag from the water and gently squeeze the chocolate through the bag
Place the bag back in warm water
Lower the temperature of the sous vide machine to 27°C. You can speed this up by adding ice if necessary
When the temperature of 27 °C is reached, raise it again to 32 °C. Leave the chocolate at this temperature again /- 5 minutes, taking the bag out every other minute to gently squeeze it
After 5 minutes, you can remove the bag from the water. Dry the bag completely and then cut a small piece from the corner of the bag. Now your chocolate is tempered and you can start making various decorations!

Tempering

If you go chocolate tabled, do you need the following supplies:

Marble plate, or other smooth (natural) stone plate
Palette knife
Heat -resistant bowl
Pan (hob)
Water

Melt the chocolate au bain-marie, this means that you put the chocolate in a heat -resistant bowl on a pan with slightly boiling water. Let the chocolate melt gently and stir regularly.
NB: No water or steam may end up in the bowl and the bottom of the bowl may not touch the water. The chocolate then becomes unusable.
Pour ⅔ from the melted chocolate over a marble plate and extend the chocolate with a palette knife and keeps it on the move. The chocolate temperes on the marble plate, because the chocolate cools in this way.
Does the chocolate get a bit firmer and can you make a mountain of it? Then he has cooled enough
Now put the ⅔ cooled chocolate back to the remaining hot chocolate and mix everything well. The chocolate is now tempered and ready for use!

ENT method

If you do not have a palette knife or a smooth surface, you can do the chocolate graft. This works as follows:

Melt ⅔ of the chocolate au bain-marie
When the chocolate has melted, add the remaining pieces of chocolate
Stir together until all chocolate has melted and it has a temperature of 26 ° C
Does the chocolate feel thicker and does it get more shine? Then it is ready for use!

Tempering dark chocolate

You melt dark chocolate at 45 to 50 ° C. Then let it cool to 38 ° C, add the cold pieces of chocolate and finish around 31 to 32 ° C.
At that temperature the chocolate is ready for use!

Milk and white chocolate tempering

Milk chocolate is best melting around 45 ° C. After cooling you should come to 30 to 31 ° C.

White chocolate you have to temper the "coldest", not higher than 45 ° C.
The final temperature then is 28 to 29 ° C.

Om chocolade te temperen heb je bepaalde specifiek benodigdheden nodig. Een gladde (natuur)stenen plaat bijvoorbeeld, heb je die niet? Wees creatief en misschien heb je wel een marmeren snijplank. Die functioneert natuurlijk ook prima als ondergrond. Een spatel is ook essentieel, want hiermee kun je de chocolade goed uitvegen over de marmeren plaat.

Voor de hobbykok die af en toe gesmolten chocolade gebruikt voor een recept is een smeltbak niet nodig. Maar wanneer een professionele chocolatier regelmatig gesmolten chocolade gebruikt, dan is een smeltbak toch een fijne aanvulling. Je stelt de gewenste temperatuur in en je hoeft het smeltproces niet steeds in de gaten te houden. Met de smeltbak kun je probleemloos chocolade smelten!