Why the Necessity to Temper Chocolates
It may be true that the arduousness of making chocolate candy may chip away at some of your enthusiasm and you will slowly awaken to the fact that the process isn’t as easy as you’ve presumed it to be. But the pleasure you’ll derive when you eventually succeed will be incomparable.
To make homemade chocolate candies, the main ingredient is any chocolatedark, semi-sweet, or white. You’ll also use an accurate thermometer, a double boiler, a rubber spatula and candy molds.
The candy making work starts with melting the chunks of chocolate in a double boiler. But you should never burn the chocolate so you’d best stir it all the while it’s on heat. Fruit-filled candies can be had by coating the fruits with the melted chocolate. You can also attempt to make candies in different shapes by filling the melted chocolate onto the candy molds. Once these are ready, you should chill them a while in a chiller bringing the process of chocolate candy making comes to an end.
Candy making can be quite complex because specific temperatures should be strictly maintained when you temper the chocolate by hand. But you can’t eschew this process just because it is difficult. If only by tempering does the chocolate become attractive, glossy and firm. If the candies are for your own use, you have no reason to bother but if they are made for selling purposes, tempering is a must.
Chocolate doesn’t come by its glossy, tempting appearance naturally, and when you start melting it, the proper temper from the manufacturers’ gets lost. You’ll need to re-temper again to avoid blooming as the crystals in the cocoa butter break up and needs to re-crystallize and stabilize.
The unique quality of cocoa butter is that its fatty acids re-form into six different types and each of these crystal forms dominate at six different temperatures. You should not allow this to happen since it will be a stumbling block to the formation of type V crystals, which alone are responsible for chocolates’ luster and snap. All types of chocolates produce type V crystals but in each type of chocolate, temperatures at which these are formed, vary. You also get type IV crystals with type V crystals but you don’t want these type IV crystals because they melt more quickly.
When you attempt to maintain specific temperatures when tempering chocolates, you should have a good thermometer to help you in this. The major hassle is even if there is a small deviation in temperatures, the tempering process fails. You can get rid of this hassle by using a tempering machine in which everything is automated. Maintaining of temperatures is done by a computer chip and formation of required quantity of type V crystals is also duly done. You’ll enjoy total freedom from hassles if you use a tempering machine; you can devote your attention to developing your business and products.
