The Two Methods of Tempering by Hand
Chocolates don’t occur smooth, creamy, shiny and rich in texture in the wild or even after roasting or grinding the cacao seeds. Chocolate tempering does that to chocolate and it’s a process carried out before chocolate are debuted commercially. In spite of the conching that it undergoes, where cocoa liquor particles are refined to smaller grains, it still needs to be tempered further to make each grain finer so that the tongue won’t be able to recognize it.
When tempering is accurate, blooming doesn’t happen, a circumstance whereby white or gray spots appear on chocolate facades and turn its texture crumbly and flaky.
More and more chocolatiers in this day and age are focusing on expanding their production at the shortest time possible so they’ve turned to the chocolate tempering machine. Sometimes though unavoidable factors affect automation, such blackouts, so it really pays if you know how to temper by hand.
There are two methods that you can use to tempering chocolates manually. The first method of manual tempering is tabliering or the marble-slab technique. This procedure was invented by the French and it includes cooling the melted chocolate on a marble slab.
You have to set a pound of chocolates, bread knife, mixing bowl, chopping board, double boiler and a rubber spatula on your production table. Chop the chocolates, melt thoroughly in a double boiler under low to medium heat, then transfer half onto a marble slab where you scrape and fold it until it attains a thick, matte texture; the other half you blend in to the same texture and temperature.
The second method of manual tempering is the seeding; it also involves the same materials, only some of the steps are different. After melting three-fourths pound of chocolate, move to a mixing bowl and then stir in the remaining chocolate strips that you didn’t melt; the object is to cool the chocolate melt to its proper cooling temperature as well.
After cooling, warm the chocolate melt again to its tempered temperature, after which you’re now ready to coat or dip your fruits and other fillings or mold the chocolates into different shapes. While you’re in the midst of this creative stage, maintain temperature ranges on an even keel with the help of your thermometer else you’ll have to re-temper the chocolate again if temperatures undergo wild swings.
Manual tempering is a complex, intricate task particularly because you need to be watchful of temperatures as well as for the great amount of time that it consumes. Imitate the commercial chocolatiers and invest in a chocolate tempering machine to make your tempering life easier and faster.
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