at Wed, 22 Dec 2004 02:04:29 GMT in <1103681069.346155.162080
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, (SC) wrote :

>I have been researching tempering techniques and wanted to ask some of
>the experts here (Alex :-) ) what your favorite (and most reliable for
>results) way is.

I use the slab-and-palette-knife method most of the time.

>The seeing technique sounds so much easier than the scraping
>(mulching?) method. If the scraping way is better, can you give me
>some pointers?

The seeding method is definitely easier, and I'll use it when appearance
and/or perfect results aren't critical, for example, on top of cakes. Its
other major advantage is that the equipment required is usually to hand in
any house, while a cool, nonporous surface, essential for the slab method,
isn't always available, and if you have to buy a marble board, it can get
pretty expensive.

The slab and palette knife method yields better results, especially in
terms of evenness of temper over the whole mass of the chocolate. I find
also that the finished texture is somewhat smoother and silkier.

As to how to do the slab method, there's no big mystery: you just need to
spade the chocolate on the slab around continuously and uniformly until it
just begins to solidify. Perhaps the other critical thing is to work
quickly. As soon as it starts to solidify, you've got to scrape it back in
to the rest of the chocolate *immediately*. Also, don't be timid in spading
it. Use vigorous, rapid movements. You want to move the chocolate around on
the slab as much as possible. Make sure your work area is neither too hot
(over 80F is deadly) nor too cold (under 60F and your tempering window will
pass too quickly). It's good to practice a couple of times, so you can
learn how the process goes - buy some quality bulk chocolate you can pick
up relatively cheaply (such as Guittard or Callebaut) to experiment with.

With the seeding method, the main thing is to keep stirring all the time.
Don't stop stirring until you're ready to dip, mould or whatever else you
plan on doing.

With either method, the more chocolate you use, the better your results
will be. Don't try to melt and temper less than 1/2 kg or so because it
won't work very well. The chocolate falls out of temper far too fast.

You can buy tempering thermometers, purpose-made for this application, that
help give you a more accurate sense of where the chocolate is at. After a
while, you'll be able to judge by eye, but even then, a thermometer is a
more reliable indicator.

And as has been said already, if you're making more than a few pieces, or
want to avoid hassle, you can buy tempering machines that keep the
chocolate in temper. This is essential for all but small-scale work
(anything over about 3 dozen pieces) because otherwise your chocolate will
fall out of temper and you'll get maddeningly inconsistent results.
However, these machines are $500 and up, so be sure to take a very
realistic assessment of how much chocolate you really are going to make.
And *never* fall into the trap of believing that, were you to have the
machine, you'd make more chocolate. It won't happen.

--
Alex Rast

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