Chocolates, chocolate cakes, chocolate glazes, exquisite molds from chocolate ... delicious and beloved sweet temptations for millions of people around the world.
However, making these chocolate products requires a lot of diligence and skill to obtain the perfect chocolate sweets.
Usually, each of our favorite chocolate desserts is based on chocolate couverture, which must be prepared by melting and tempering.
Melting a couverture is done in two ways.
The first and considered more reliable way is to melt chocolate in a water bath. A pot of water is placed on the stove and on top of it another smaller container in which the cut into small pieces couverture is placed. If couverture capsules are used, then cutting is unnecessary.
It is important that the water does not boil, but has a temperature of 140°F (60°C) and does not go into the bowl with the chocolate, because the chocolate will lump up.
Stir the chocolate, until all the small pieces have melted.
With the second method, the couverture is melted in a microwave oven, by stirring every minute.
After melting, it's time to temper the chocolate. Here are two ways:
In the first case, 2/3 of the melted chocolate is spread in a thin layer on a cooled marble slab and begin to gather it with a spatula from the edges to the middle, until the chocolate begins to thicken.
Then mix the thickened chocolate with the remaining 1/3 hot couverture and mix well.
The chocolate needs to reach a temperature of 90°F (32°C).
The second way to temper chocolate is to add pieces of cold and unmelted couverture to the melted couverture. Stir, until a homogeneous mixture with a temperature of 90°F (32°C) is obtained.
If after homogenization the temperature is more than 90°F (32°C), add a cold couverture.
Now the chocolate is tempered and ready to turn into tempting desserts from the hands of master confectioners.
