Tempering Chocolate with Dom

At Belgian Delights, we love creating perfect chocolates, there's more to it than just tasting great, it needs to look desirable and have that 'chocolate snap' too, so here is a short video with Dom, our Chief Chocolatier, to assist you in creating the perfect chocolates. There are tips on Melting, Tempering & Moulding.

Tools Required

• Stove
• Bain Marie (Saucepan & Bowl)
• Thermometer
• Spatula
• Ladle
• Pallet Knife
• Tea Towel
• Chocolate Mould

Melting: Place the Bain Marie on the stove and add around 10cm water to the saucepan, put on medium heat to get it simmering. Add the Belgian Delights chocolate buttons into the bowl and place it on top of saucepan. The steam will heat the bowl evenly to melt the chocolate.  Once it’s pretty much melted, lower the heat and do a temp check, aiming for 45ºC.

TIP: Always, when taking the bowl off the Bain Marie, wipe the outside of the bowl to keep moisture away as if any water gets into the melted chocolate, it will ruin it.

Tempering: Once the chocolate is melted, we can start tempering. To bring the chocolate down in temperature, bring bowl off the Bain Marie, wipe the outside, add a handful of buttons to cool down the chocolate mass. Keep the chocolate moving until the buttons have melted, add another handful of buttons and keep stirring, checking the temperature, getting it to around 29 degrees. Take a sample to check, using a pallet knife and leave some chocolate on it, place it on a cool bench and in 3 to 5 mins it should start setting. If you don’t temper chocolate at all, it will not come out of the moulds. If you did a rough job of tempering, it will look grey and spotty and the chocolate won’t snap.

Moulding: Now the chocolate is tempered. Ladle some chocolate into the mould ensuring all cavities are filled. Scrap off any excess, then give the mould a good tap and shake the mould to get out all the air bubbles, flattening the chocolate out and ensuring all cavities are full. Place into a fridge of 5 degrees for about 10 mins. If you look through the mould you can see the chocolate should not be sticking to the mould, it should be releasing. Crack the tray like an ice cube tray and then tap out onto a flat surface, the chocolate should be shiny if tempered right. Check the snap and taste too!

TIP: As you are working, if the bowl of chocolate looks to be cooling too fast, you can place it back on the Bain Marie to melt some more.

Should you wish to try this, click here to purchase our chocolate buttons.

We'd absolutely love to see what you create with the Belgian Delights button range, so make sure to send us a pic of your finished creation (before you eat it!)