Some chocolatiers may say that chocolate candy making is an easy process. Nothing is farthest from the truth though you may thing so otherwise because the equipment needed to make confectioneries are easy to acquire, like a thermometer to gauge temperatures, a double boiler to melt chocolates on, bowls for mixing, spatula for folding and spreading melted chocolate, cookie cutters or candy molds to create chocolate shapes, and the basic chocolate ingredient (your choice).
The chocolate bar is cut to be melted easier; and during this melting, you must keep stirring the contents continuously to prevent burning. After air-drying this melted chocolate on a baking sheet, you can make candies of charming designs using candy molds or a cutter; you can also make coated-fruit candies.
When you casually make chocolate candy for offering to your friends and relatives, you need not give much importance to tempering so there is no need for a thermometer. But, if you venture into commercial sales, you should temper them properly for which you’ll be needing a thermometer.
Without tempering, chocolates cannot be shiny, smooth, crisp and creamy because these are not their natural qualities. In tempering, you follow the three steps of heating, cooling and re-heating and you should maintain correct temperatures during these three steps. Otherwise, chocolates remain untempered and would result in unappealing chocolate candy.
Every chocolate typelike the dark, semi-sweet and whitehas their own tempering temperature. Cocoa butter is composed of fatty acids that can solidify into six crystal structures which multiply at six unique temperatures. Additionally, type IV crystals get produced with the type V crystals but they melt away sooner than type V crystals so you don’t need them.
When there is a necessity to temper large quantities of chocolates, you should opt to use a tempering machine because it comes with a computer chip to maintain temperatures at accurate levels; you won’t have difficulties that will rob you of the fun in chocolate candy making. Tabliering, a manual tempering technique, is the preferred method for artisan chocolatiers.
Chocolatiers should have to learn how to temper by hand because this is a skill that would allow you to face unforeseen situations when chocolate will have to be tempered manually. In tabliering, chocolates are tempered by using a marble slab in the cooling phase of tempering. In the other method of manual tempering, called “seeding”, tempering is done by using little chocolate solids, tempered by the manufacturer, as “seeds” for the loose crystals to copy.
If there is a lapse in sustaining tempering temperatures, you’ll need to temper till the chocolates achieve an ideal tempered state.