It sounds like an intimidating, professional-level technique and while it requires precision and patience, it’s easily achievable in your home kitchen using inexpensive tools and common ingredients.
Once you understand the process, you’ll be on your way to creating chocolates that snap beautifully, shine brilliantly, and resist blooming.
Dominating the art of tempering chocolate
is the single most important task in your chocolate making journey.
Why temper? It’s beautiful science
In chemistry terminology, chocolate is a suspension of solid particles. Chocolate -dark, milk or white- is a mix of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, emulsifiers and other ingredients, like dairy solids and flavours.
Cocoa butter has an uncommon property: it can crystallize into six different forms, each with a different melting point and crystal structure. In science, this kind of substance is called a polymorph.
Only one of these crystalline forms, Form V, gives chocolate its peculiar characteristics: the snap, shine, and stability that you associate with high quality chocolate.
Other crystalline forms are not so desirable: they have melting points that are too low for storage, are unstable when stored, are too soft or have a dull and unappealing presentation.
When chocolate melts, all the crystal structures are dissolved. If you simply let it cool and solidify, the cocoa butter will recrystallize randomly, forming unstable structures that are dull and soft. Think of a chocolate bar that melts in a summer day .
Chocolate not tempered properly looks sad and dull, melts too easily and may develop “white bloom” (a dusty powdery residue) when stored.
The following is our table of Polymorphs of Chocolate;
| FORM | MELTING POINT | NOTES |
| I | 17.3 C / 63.14 F | Soft, crumbly, dull, melts too easily |
| II | 23.3 C / 73.4 F | Soft, crumbly, dull, melts too easily |
| III | 25.5 C / 77.9 F | Melts easily, firm, dull, no “snap” |
| IV | 27.3 C / 81.14 F | More firm, dull, no “snap”, no shine |
| V | 33.8 C / 92.84 F | Shiny, dense and breaks with a snap |
| VI | 36.3 C / 97.34 F | Hard, dense and unpleasant. Can only occur in storage |
The table shows a “sweet spot” around 32-34 degrees C (88 to 93F) where fat crystals of forms I to IV are molten and dissolved. Keeping the chocolate at this temperature while stirring encourages the formation of Form V crystals.
This is Tempering Chocolate: is all about making something beautiful out of a mass of chocolate.
What you need for tempering
In a nutshell, your tempering must haves are:
- Good Quality Chocolate: This is non-negotiable. See our Chocolate 101 article to know which one to use when starting out.
Note: Do not use chocolate chips for baking, as they often contain stabilizers that make tempering difficult, if not impossible. - Microwave: Use it to heat and melt the chocolate. You must be careful to avoid burning the chocolate.
- Digital thermometer: Absolutely crucial. A good instant-read thermometer is your best friend here. Don’t eyeball it; precision is key.
- Heatproof spatula: Silicone or rubber spatulas are perfect for stirring. Do not use wood or plastic spatulas.
- Clean, dry bowls and utensils: Water is chocolate’s enemy. Even a tiny drop can cause it to “seize” and become a thick, unworkable mess.
- A ceramic plate or tray: Optional, but helpful for working the chocolate on a cool surface.
- Patience and focus: Seriously, tempering chocolate is a meditative process. Wax on, wax off.
- A fridge or cool storage: Tempering requires lowering the temperature of the working product. If you live in a place with air temperature above 25 C (77 F) you must use a fridge or cool storage to bring the temperature down.
Tempering chocolate is a learning curve: don’t be discouraged by challenges and initial setbacks. Each attempt teaches you more about the subtle nuances of chocolate making.