- Let's Talk Chocolate -

Chocolate, my first love, is probably the first thing that pops to mind when someone thinks about something sweet. As I mentioned before, I am of the opinion that dessert is only dessert if chocolate is a part of it...every other kind of dessert is simply called "breakfast". ;) As you will notice, and have probably noticed already, Chocolate is going to be a big part of this blog, as it is my favorite thing in the world to eat.

Lately, I have been growing picky about my chocolate. I used to be the milk chocolate lover of the family, and dark chocolate was a last resort...but that's sort of flipped recently. Now I never bake with milk chocolate if I can help it. It's not that milk chocolate is bad, it is just too sweet for my taste, at least for baking. I even like the extreme-dark chocolate bars that are 90% cocoa, yeah, I know, I'm crazy. My favorite is bittersweet chocolate, though. I am not a big fan of semisweet chocolate chips either, which is probably good since most chocolate chips you can buy are semisweet and not bittersweet. If they were mostly bittersweet they not be sticking around long enough for me to bake with them, and thus, my family would have some complaints to file. =)  

Anyways, talking chocolate. I recently finished taking a several week baking and pastry course at a small local cooking school. I learned a lot, like how to make creme brulee, properly torte and fill a cake, make cream puffs, salambos, and caramel, and last but not least, how to temper chocolate. And that is what I am going to share with you today. 

We made truffle with the tempered chocolate. Of course it is a delicious ganache center (just a simple chocolate and heavy cream ganache), which you can flavor with different liquors like hazelnut, raspberry, orange, etc. I put a little cinnamon into mine. But getting back to the tempering part:

You will need a double boiler, chocolate chips (bittersweet), and a thermometer (this is crucial).

So what happens here gets mathematical. You want to take a 30% of your chocolate and set it aside. For those of you who are like me and aren't math geniuses, I will simplify how to do this. So say you are using 1 pound of chocolate. Put it in a bowl on a scale. There are 16.00 oz. in a pound, alright. Now what you do is you take that decimal point in the 16.00 oz. and you move it to the left one number. It will look like this now (1.6 oz.) That is 10% of a pound. So now you just do this:  1.6 x 3 = 4.8. And that 4.8 oz. is your 30%. Pretty easy, right?

Now here comes more complications (and this is where you'll want to use your thermometer). You set aside the 30%, and the rest of the chocolate you melt in a double boiler. Once melted, use the thermometer. For this bittersweet chocolate, you must get it to 114-118 degrees F. Once you are there, pull the chocolate off. (Now if you are hotter than you want, once you have taken the chocolate off, just keep stirring the chocolate to cool it down to that right temp.) Once you have taken the chocolate off and it is the right temp, start adding the 30% leftover chocolate. I would put in half a handful and stir till it is melted. Do this a couple times and then check the temp. To properly temper the chocolate you must bring the temp down to 88-89 degrees F. Keep adding the chocolate, half handfuls at a time stirring till melted in between each handful till you reach the right temp. Now your chocolate is tempered properly and you want to start working with it immediately. 

If you are doing truffles, you should have already rolled the ganache into small balls and kept them chilling in the refrigerator. Then you coat the ganache centers in the tempered chocolate and put them on parchment paper to harden, they should harden within a couple minutes or so. Once done you can put them into the refrigerator for a few minutes, but after which, store at room temp for the tempered chocolate's sake. =) 

Here is the Tempering Guide:

For Dark Chocolate: Raise temp. to 114-118 degrees F. then lower to 88-89 degrees F. 
For Milk Chocolate: Raise temp. to 105-113 degrees F. then lower to 88-89 degrees F.
For White Chocolate: Raise temp to 100-110 degrees F. then lower to 84-86 degrees F.

And that, my friends, is how you properly temper chocolate.

 

And they were good...

-J.