Tempering Chocolate

Chocolate isn't just delicious — it's also a fantastic ingredient to bake with. Use it to make chocolates, or coat your cake or tart in a gorgeous layer of chocolate. To give chocolate that beautiful gloss and smooth texture, you need to temper it. For many home bakers, this is still quite a challenge. Read on to find out how to temper chocolate like a pro!

Tempering Chocolate

With this technique, your chocolates, pralines, and tarts will soon look as though they were made by a real chocolatier! Did you know, by the way, that chocolate is made up of 3 components: cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and sugar.

What is tempering chocolate?

Tempering chocolate sounds complicated, but it's really nothing more than melting chocolate and then bringing it to the right temperature. When chocolate melts, the six types of crystals present in cocoa butter re-form. Of these crystal types, only one gives melted chocolate its delicious taste, satisfying snap, and beautiful gloss. Each crystal type forms at a different temperature, which is exactly why tempering matters. By heating and then cooling the chocolate, the unwanted crystals disappear and only the right one remains.

The melted chocolate needs to be exactly warm enough for that one crystal type to do its job. On top of that, the crystals in dark, milk, and white chocolate each require a different temperature to work. Tempering chocolate is no small feat — but by melting the right chocolate at the right temperature, anyone can do it!

How and why to temper chocolate?

Tempering chocolate is an essential step when you're making chocolates, peanut clusters, or a chocolate bar, for example. Skip this step and use only melted chocolate, and you'll get a very different result. The chocolates won't have a gloss, they'll melt in your hand, or the peanut clusters will have a grainy texture and sometimes develop a white bloom.

With or without a thermometer

Tempering chocolate with a thermometer gives you greater precision, and the chance of something going wrong is considerably smaller than when you temper chocolate without a thermometer. Without one, you're going more by feel, which doesn't always work out — because you simply 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 an extended period of time. Sous vide is a French term that literally means 'under vacuum'. You can also temper chocolate using the sous vide technique.

Heat the water to 46 °C using a sous vide machine
Finely chop the chocolate and place it in a sous vide bag
Place the bag of chocolate in the sous vide container and let it sit submerged in the water until fully melted (approx. 5 minutes)
Remove the bag from the water and gently knead the chocolate through the bag
Place the bag back in the warm water
Lower the temperature of the sous vide machine to 27 °C. You can speed this up by adding ice if needed
Once the temperature reaches 27 °C, raise it back up to 32 °C. Leave the chocolate at this temperature for approx. 5 minutes, removing the bag every minute to gently squeeze it
After 5 minutes, remove the bag from the water. Dry the bag completely, then snip a small piece off one corner. Your chocolate is now tempered and ready for all kinds of decorations!

Tabling

If you're going to table your chocolate, you'll need the following equipment:

Marble slab, or another smooth (natural) stone surface
Palette knife
Heatproof bowl
Saucepan (hob)
Water

Melt the chocolate au bain-marie — this means placing the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Let the chocolate melt slowly and stir regularly.
Note: no water or steam should get into the bowl, and the bottom of the bowl must not touch the water. If it does, the chocolate will be ruined.
Pour ⅔ of the melted chocolate onto a marble slab and use a palette knife to spread it out, keeping it in constant motion. The chocolate tempers on the marble slab as it cools down.
Does the chocolate start to thicken and can you form a small mound with it? Then it's cooled down enough.
Add the cooled ⅔ of chocolate back to the remaining warm chocolate and mix everything together thoroughly. The chocolate is now tempered and ready to use!

Seeding method

If you don't have a palette knife or a smooth surface, you can seed the chocolate instead. Here's how:

Melt ⅔ of the chocolate au bain-marie
Once the chocolate has melted, add the remaining pieces of chocolate
Stir until all the chocolate has melted and the temperature reaches 26 °C
Does the chocolate feel thicker and start to develop a gloss? Then it's ready to use!

Tempering dark chocolate

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

Tempering milk and white chocolate

Milk chocolate is best melted at around 45 °C. After cooling, you should end up at 30–31 °C.

White chocolate needs to be tempered at the 'coolest' temperature — no higher than 45 °C.
The final temperature should then be 28–29 °C.

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To temper chocolate, you need a few specific tools. A smooth (natural) stone slab, for instance — don't have one? Get creative: you might already own a marble cutting board. That works perfectly as a work surface too. A palette knife is also essential, as you'll use it to spread the chocolate evenly across the marble slab.

For the home cook who occasionally uses melted chocolate in a recipe, a melting tank isn't necessary. But when a professional chocolatier uses melted chocolate on a regular basis, a melting tank is a great addition. You set the desired temperature and don't have to keep monitoring the melting process. With a melting tank, you can melt chocolate effortlessly!