Tempering Chocolate

To ‘temper’ chocolate means to stabilise the microscopic crystals within it by heating it to a particular temperature, then allowing it to cool. When creating garnishes, casting moulds, or making bars, lollipops and various other chocolate confections, it is necessary to temper store-bought chocolate. Successful tempering will result in shiny, smear-free chocolate that will snap cleanly when broken and will resist the heat from your hands during minimal handling.

Simply put, chocolate consists of cocoa solids (which provide the chocolate flavour and dark colour) and cocoa butter (a fat that provides the distinctive ‘mouth feel’ of good chocolate). A number of crystals are embedded in the cocoa butter, and these have to be aligned in order for the chocolate to be tempered. All of these crystals have different melting points, so the chocolate needs first to be melted and then brought down in temperature.