When you make large batches of chocolate candies, you should use a tempering machine. But there may be some extreme situations when you may be expected to do tempering by hand. To face such out of the ordinary situations, you should learn to do tempering by hand despite the fact that it is difficult.
That tempering is important is not a point for debate because chocolates are not smooth and shiny by nature. They become crisp and shiny, acquire a luxurious texture and prevent whitish-gray spots appearing on the chocolates only by tempering.
The fats in chocolate, cocoa butter, has about 50% solids in it. During tempering, these solids and the butter crystals get suspended together; at the time of heating to 90F, the crystals come away from the solids and rise to the surface. Since tempers are lost, you see blooming and crumbling taking place.
Re-crystallization of fatty acids into six types of crystals is the unique attribute of cocoa butter. These six types of crystals inimitably dominate at six different temperatures and hence you should maintain temperatures accurately during tempering. It is the type V crystals among the six that gives the shine and the snap to the chocolates.
Since the chocolate is melted at 90F, it loses its original temper. But it’s only by melting that chocolates become suitable for dipping and molding and hence re-tempering becomes necessary. Two methods are available to do this.
Tabliering, or the marble-slab method, is a French innovation. You cut a pound of chocolate into strips of 5 mm. in size and melt it on a double boiler at its particular temperature. Care should be taken to use only dry chopping boards and repository bowls when you cut the chocolate. Half of the melted chocolate is worked on the marble slab, by means of a rubber spatula until it thickens to a smooth, shiny consistency. The remaining half is also mixed with this and the whole mass is worked upon, the ultimate aim being a uniform temperature and texture o the entire chunk. Only then can you do candy dipping and molding. Since the chocolate solidifies quickly, care must be taken to maintain the temperature. Minding temperatures is facilitated by using a good calibrated thermometer or a digital laser one.
The seeding process involves the use of already-tempered chocolate as seed to “inoculate” the melted chocolate ensuring that type V crystals has the upper hand during crystallization. Unlike in tabliering, you melt only 75% of the chocolate and you cut the remaining 25% into smallish strips. After melting, these strips are stirred into the molten chocolate to achieve a uniform temperature, shine and smoothness to the whole mass.
Tempering by hand involves the difficult step of maintaining temperatures. The humidity during summer is an added challenge even for experienced chocolate makers.