Baking Basics: How to Melt and Temper Chocolate

 Let's face it. Chocolate can be finicky. Anyone who has ever had chocolate seize on them can attest to this.

*photo credit: food52.com

Now, I don't want to talk about what to do if chocolate seizes. We'll save that for another day. But today I want to discuss how to prevent chocolate from seizing or burning when melting it and how to get it to set up again after it's been melted, also known as tempering.

Now, chocolate melts fairly easily. But it doesn't need very high temperatures. It melts by agitation. So, what you want to do when melting chocolate is to apply low heat and stir often. That means that it is easiest to melt chocolate when it is in small pieces. Begin by chopping your bars of chocolate into small pieces.
I prefer melting chocolate in a microwave. If you want to melt it over the stove, however, please use a double boiler (also known as bain marie). Melting it directly in a pot over the heat, will be too hot and will likely burn the chocolate.
If you do decide to go with a microwave like I do, make sure it is set to half power, or defrosting mode if your microwave doesn't show power.

When you heat the chocolate, don't heat it for longer than 30 seconds at a time. Stir between each heating, allowing the chocolate to cool a bit each time.

Using this method, you won't see much progress at first. But this will temper the chocolate as you melt it. It will keep it from burning and maintain the chemical structure of the chocolate, allowing it to harden again properly.
The reason chocolate can't be heated too warm, is because if it gets too hot, chocolate will lose its structure and it will be difficult to get it to set up again. It will stay runny at room temperature. This is especially true with European chocolate which contains fewer stabilizers than American chocolate. You have to treat it carefully.
Continue to stir and heat gently.

Eventually, the chocolate will be completely melted. As long as you never heated it too warm, the chocolate will already be tempered and can now be used to create chocolates, cover cake pops, make decorations, etc. Whatever you want to use it for.

Now that looks gorgeous.

However, let's imagine that you didn't burn your chocolate, didn't cause it to seize, but you did accidentally heat it too warm to temper it. You can still save it. Add more unmelted chocolate to the hot chocolate and stir.
And stir until it's completely melted. Don't heat the chocolate again if you can get away with it. If the last chunks refuse to melt, heat them gently in the microwave at half heat (defrosting mode) briefly. Just until the chocolate will melt by stirring.
Basically, our goal is to heat the chocolate just to barely the melting point and not let it go over that temperature. If you manage that, your chocolate will be lovely and tempered.

Watch us melt and temper chocolate on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/pAq1VpvtMEM
Schaut zu wie wir Schokolade schmelzen und temperieren auf unserem YouTube Kanal hier: https://youtu.be/HnxvR_Tv4CA

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