Tempering chocolate...

...is difficult. Our past few pastry demonstrations have been about tempering chocolate. Even though the chefs make it look easy in class (I guess it's not difficult when you've been doing it for 30 years), when we got into the kitchens and had to temper our own chocolate, we failed miserably...at first.


The first time we tried to temper milk chocolate, only one of the fourteen of us succeeded. As for the rest of us, this is what happened:

Can you see how the surface of the chocolate has rings and waves on it? Well, it's not supposed to be that way. Chocolate that has been properly tempered has a perfectly smooth surface that doesn't melt as soon as you touch it. The half-moons pictured above melted on my fingers.


They looked pretty and tasted delicious (filled with praline), but didn't meet the cut. I also made these little guys, also filled with praline and rolled in powdered sugar. Yummy.

I've told you before that I'm not that into sweets. Well, this does NOT apply to chocolate. Even though I can easily pass up milk chocolate (too sweet and sugary for my taste), I find it almost impossible to say no to dark chocolate. In fact, the darker, the better. See my entry about it from months ago.


Yesterday, we tempered dark chocolate. This time, BINGO! I was one of three in the class to get it right! Woohooo!

my tempered dark chocolate - no waves or streaks! 

my dark chocolate truffles

Le Cordon Bleu's way of tempering chocolate (by hand - there are machines that can do it) is copyrighted, but I think I can get away with saying that it involves a temperature curve. You need to melt the chocolate to 50 degrees C, then cool it to around 27 degrees, then raise the temperature again to its proper "working" temperature", which differs for white, milk, and dark chocolate, which are all around the 30 degree mark. This temperature curve allows the chocolate to crystalize, makes it look shiny, and is able to snap when it dries.


These are the chef's beautifully tempered chocolates:

chef's artists' palette of milk chocolates

orange zest covered in dark chocolate - delicious and beautiful treats

box of dark chocolates

Many factors can affect the ability to temper chocolate correctly, including humidity. So wish me luck when I return to the heat and humidity of Trinidad and try this at home!