(Experiment 184) Tempering chocolate

Ingredients

200 g or more chocolate it needs to contain cocoa butter.

Instructions

Temperatures listed below are for Callebaut 811 chocolate. If you use something else please refer to the chart on your bag.

Set up a bain-marie (double boiler) over simmering water, and put in two-thirds of the chocolate. Temperature is critical — let it reach 115°F. Stir, stir, stir, and keep watching the temperature. This is a slow process, and if you overheat the chocolate, you're done.
Once at 115°F, remove from heat and add the remaining chocolate little by little while stirring, making sure it's melted before adding more. Adding unmelted chocolate drops the melted chocolate's temperature. Keep doing this until you reach 95°F.

You dont want to add to many chocolate when you get closer to 95F else you will end up with unmelted chocolate.

Let it cool to 80–81°F, stirring occasionally.

If you are doing this recipe during summer months and your kitchen is hot, you can use the following tip. Put cold water in a bowl and put your chcolate bowl in the cold water for 2 seconds at most. Then keep on stirring. Dont over do it else it will cause the chocolate to cool too fast,but you can do it 2 or 3 times if it doesnt drop. It is imperative you do no get any water in your chocolate.

Now it's time to test the chocolate. Put a little bit on a piece of parchment paper and wait 2–3 minutes. If it comes off the paper cleanly and "snaps" when you break it, you have tempered chocolate, my friend. If not, reheat to 95°F and restart the process of adding chocolate to cool it down.
If you succeeded, put the chocolate back on the bain-marie and heat it back to 88–90°F. Take it out and use it right away

Notes

At minimum, you want to use 200g of chocolate, or it will be very hard to monitor the temperature. I used Callebaut No. 811, and needless to say, the results were amazing. It's one of the best chocolates you can get your hands on.

Do note that you may fail a few times trying to temper chocolate. Sometime it takes me a few try to make it correctly. Its an art !