How adventurous have you gotten with chocolate? Perhaps you have dipped some strawberries for a special occasion, or thrown an extra handful of chips into your cookie recipe.
My first encounter with chocolate, in terms of candy making, went fairly well. I made a ganache, formed truffles, and then dipped them in chocolate that I had melted in the microwave. The truffles were eaten before I got a chance to find out that I had gone wrong, very, very, wrong!
If you have tried to temper chocolate by hand before, you are well aware that it is tricky. It can be done, but often success (or failure) is not known for a day or two after the fact. A pesky little thing called "bloom" shows up to ruin a valiant effort at chocolate candy making.
You may have noticed the affects of bloom after pulling chocolate out of a freezer, or like me, after spending hours carefully dipping candied pecans. My glossy dark chocolate covered nuts, became hideous a couple of days after they were dipped. The most horrifying part of the ordeal, is that I had given some as a gift before I knew what they were going to morph into.
What happens with bloom, is the chocolate crystals lose their structure when heated, and as they cool, the cocoa butter in the chocolate re-forms crystals depending upon the temperature of the chocolate when they're formed. If done at the correct temperature, then it regains the "memory" of its structure, and will cool and set up with a nice finish. If not, the cocoa butter will appear on the surface of the chocolate, leaving unsightly light marks, and an oily texture. Bloom is great for flowers, but a big no-no for chocolate!
The texture of the chocolate will also be destroyed if it is not tempered properly, and it loses the "snap" characteristic of good chocolate, when it is broken or bitten into.
What is an aspiring chocolate artisan to do?
There are two options:
a)practice, practice, practice, and perfect the process of tempering by hand, or
b)bite the bullet, and purchase a tempering unit
For those of you who choose "a", follow the instructions in Tempering by Hand to get started.
