Chocolate is some pretty magical stuff. It’s right up there with eggs on my list of all-time favorite food science ingredients. I’m not talking magical like the movie Chocolat which is not, in fact, magical at all. I’m talking about the scientific properties of chocolate’s makeup that allows it to be a liquid, a solid and just about all of the phases in between (a phase is a state of matter: solid, liquid, gas, etc.).
Ready to nerd out? Good.
So first off, the term “tempering” refers to the process of altering chocolate’s fat composition so that it hardens at room temperature with all of the characteristics of a fancy shmancy chocolate bar; an attractive sheen, a hard “snap” when it’s broken and a proper melt point (…not in your hand kind of melting). For my techniques on how to actually temper chocolate, don’t fret, that post is coming up next!
Tempering is all possible thanks to the fat found in chocolate: cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is almost always in a crystal form, and what’s really special is that as a crystal, it has the ability to exist in many different shapes and sizes depending on its temperature. This characteristic is called polymorphous crystallization, and without it we’d live in a world without chocolate bars – or at least good ones.
The major crystal formations are generally defined by the temperature range they exist in. The way I think of crystal formation in chocolate is like plants in an ecosystem. Only certain plants can exist in the heat of the dessert, certain ones in the cold tundra, etc. and the same goes for cocoa butter crystals. For example, any temperature over 63F/17C is too hot for a Form I crystal to exist. Above that temperature it loses its form and either reforms as a different crystal or turns to liquid if the chocolate is too hot to support anything.
Here are the temperature limits of the six cocoa butter crystal forms:
Form I – 63F/17C
Form II – 74F/23C
Form III – 78F/25.5C
Form IV – 81F/27C
Form V – 93F/34C
Form VI – 98F/36C
Almost all of the crystal forms are unstable due to their shape. They lack the ability to efficiently interlock with each other and at best create a loose, weak, uneven network of fat throughout the chocolate. This translates into a crumbly texture, a dull finish and at worst a complete lack of solidification, melting on contact with anything warmer than room temperature. But one form – Form V – is perfect for getting all of the right qualities we want in chocolate. The structure of a Form V interlocks nicely with itself forming tight, ordered rows that give the chocolate strength and stability. The foundation of tempering chocolate, then, is “growing” just the right amount of Form V crystals by managing the temperature range that supports them.
To start, you need to heat your chocolate to a temperature that is too hot for any major crystals to form. This gives you a sort of blank canvas or fresh patch of dirt to start growing your crystals. For dark chocolate (anything over 58% cocoa content) a temperature of 113F/45C is hot enough. For milk and white chocolate, 104C/40C is fine. Why the difference? Well for one thing, milk and white chocolate contain much more milk solids than dark chocolate, and those are easier to burn or split at higher temperature.
At high temperatures (113F/45C), the cocoa butter lacks a crystal form.
Once your chocolate is hot, you want to cool it slowly. Staying above a temperature where Form I-IV crystals can grow and spending the majority of your time in that Form V zone to ensure you have the right environment to grow the right type of crystal.
After cooling, stable Form V crystals are developing (the hexagons) along with less stable Form I, II, III and IV (all the other beautifully crafted shapes). At this stage the chocolate would lack the stability to set properly.
After you’ve bottomed out in the Form V zone at around 85F/29.5C, it’s time to warm the chocolate back up a little. The extra heat eliminates some of the less stable crystals that may have formed and settles you in the prime temperature for maintaining Form V: 90.5F/32.5C. Done? Not quite.
After warming the chocolate slightly (90F/32C), Form I, II, III and IV crystals break down and reform, leaving the Form V.
Cooling and warming the chocolate isn’t enough. You could technically leave hot chocolate out in a cool room and it would hit the correct temperature eventually, but it wouldn’t be tempered properly.
This is chocolate that was heated to 113F/45C and then left untouched to cool at room temp. Sure, it hits the temperatures needed to create tempered chocolate, and it technically sets, but this little nugget is totally crumbly and split. Temperature isn’t enough to temper chocolate! But for real, I love this photo.
Just another shot of the untempered chocolate. And another chance to show a photo I like a lot.
The other piece of the puzzle is agitation. By agitating the chocolate you stir the crystals together. This causes chain reactions that forms similar crystals and starts to interlock them. So throughout the entire cooling and warming process you have to keep your chocolate moving, stirring up the Form V crystals to enlist their buddies to join the party.
Through a chain reaction, Form V crystals continue to form and connect as the chocolate sets.
Almost finished! The cocoa butter begins to show the stable network of interlocked crystals that will give us beautiful chocolate.
As the chocolate continues to set, the cocoa butter crystals continue to grow and interlock, forming a tight network that not only creates stability and texture, but contracts, allowing the chocolate to release from a mold it may be casted in.
Well tempered and set chocolate – all of the Form V cocoa butter crystals have locked together into a strong network. By tightly bonding, they force the chocolate to contract (by about 2% in overall volume) which allows set chocolate to release from molds.
But what happens if your chocolate isn’t at 90.5F/32.5C when you’re done? What if it’s too cold? Or too hot? Good questions, but I have no idea.
…Psyche! You should see your face, I totally fooled you. Anyway, in terms of a temperature range that is still workable, anything over 93F/34C is too warm and realistically anything under 79F/26C is too cold. Chocolate that’s too warm is pretty obviously not going to work. We know any temperature above 93F/34C is too hot for Form V to exist and so your precious crystals will melt away leaving you with untempered chocolate and a lifetime of shame. If your chocolate ever gets that warm while you’re working with it, there’s nothing to do but heat it back up to 113F/45C and start the tempering process over again.
The lesser of two evils in temperature is leaving it on the cooler side, but it’s a little more complicated as to why. Let’s be clear, chocolate that’s too cold is no fun, but at least it maintains an environment where beta prime crystals can live. So why should you avoid it? Well, we know at low temperatures Form I – IV crystals will grow, and that will contaminate the Form V you worked to develop. Also, at low temperatures the chocolate just generally sets too quickly. Beta prime crystals interlock tightly with lots of strength and stability, but ideally they like to take their time doing it.
Here’s an illustration of the concept I love to use: Picture a room full of chairs – the metal and plastic variety that stack onto one another. If I gave you a full day to stack those chairs as uniformly as possible, it would be a piece of cake. At the end of the day the chairs would be in nice, even rows, all snug and happy. Now let’s say I gave you 5 minutes instead. Could you stack all of them? Maybe, maybe not, but for sure they’d be a mess of rows and heights with maybe some stragglers left lying around.
An example of chocolate that has set too quickly. The cocoa butter crystals haven’t had time to fully interlock and align and the result is weak chocolate.
This is exactly what’s happening to cocoa butter crystals setting up at too low a temperature. They don’t have the proper time to align evenly and compactly. So while your chocolate may set up quickly when it’s at a low temperature, it’s likely to be weak and crumbly. This wonderful analogy illustrates the fact that your tempered chocolate should not just be in a nice 86F/30C – 90F/32C range while you work with it, but given as much time as possible to set after you’ve casted your chocolate bar or made your candies or whatever. And yet….
….not too much time. At least not at a warm temperature. Too much time will allow unstable crystals to grow and congregate until they can be seen with the naked eye (known as bloom, which we’ll get into in just a second).
This chunk of chocolate shows an outer edge of tempered chocolate that set within a decent amount of time. The center, insulated and kept warm for too long, suffered from fat bloom. The light areas you see are unstable cocoa butter crystals that have formed.
The best environment for your chocolate to set in is 55F/12C – 60F/15.5C with moderate to low humidity. Think wine cellar. Notice I didn’t say the refrigerator? A terrible myth is that chocolate should be kept in the fridge, when in fact it’s about the worst place to keep it. Yes, you should keep chocolate in a cool, dark environment and yes, a fridge is both of those, but it still isn’t the best option. Chocolate is incredibly shelf stable thanks to the fact that if contains virtually no water. A refrigerator is a very humid environment, so placing chocolate in the fridge introduces it to more bacteria growth potential, not less. The moisture that condenses on the surface of the chocolate can also cause discoloration and ruin its texture. This is of course only when you’re dealing with solid chocolate. If you’ve made a ganache or any product with dairy, eggs, etc. then duh, keep it in the fridge.
In the right environment it’s never a bad idea to give your chocolate 24hrs to fully set, no matter what you might be doing with it (decorations, bon bons, ganache). But as I mentioned before, in a warm temperature, too much setting time will cause fat bloom.*
*Sometimes this bloom is caused by sugar, but we’ll talk about that in a different post.
You’ve almost certainly seen fat bloom on chocolate before. Most of us have our first encounter with bloom after buying a candy bar from the drugstore. We unwrap our little treat only to see a light brownish-grey texture all over the outside of the bar that kind of looks like mold. Sure, we eat the candy anyway, but we’re left with questions.
Beautiful but undesirable: here you see fat bloom – lots of it. Like little chocolate snowflakes, you can even decipher some of the crystaline structures the fat likes to form!
Fat bloom is not mold. It’s the physical evidence of Form VI cocoa butter crystals that have gathered on the surface of the chocolate and recrystallized in such large quantities that they can be seen with the naked eye. For a drugstore candy bar fat bloom is almost always the result of age or poor temperature control. If the candy bar is old, then the Form V crystals have simply had enough time and leftover energy to create Form VI crystals (which only happens after several weeks or months) and bloom results. In terms of temperature, the candy bar sits somewhere cold, then somewhere warm, then back again; moving in and out of temper and setting the neat little rows of Form V crystals into pandemonium. Most of the Form V crystals stay alive and reorganize. But other crystals form too, and when the Form Vs tighten their ranks, the other crystals are pushed out of the club, gathering and forming on the surface of the chocolate to scare us all into thinking we secretly eat moldy candy bars. While Fat bloom won’t make you sick, it creates a waxy or fatty texture and taste that isn’t pleasant. Get down on those candy bars, guilt free!
Whew, we’ve covered a lot in a short amount time. Hopefully this little chat has not only given you a better sense of how cocoa butter acts and reacts, but how you can manipulate it to create beautifully tempered chocolate. If nothing else you’ve likely picked up a little ammo for your next trivia night. You’re welcome!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Fantastic explanation, thanks I can’t wait to share it with my staff.
Thanks Natasha, I’m glad you liked the post! Happy tempering,
Chef Scott
Thank you for this post! It’s a great read with great analogies.
Thanks Angela, I’m glad you liked it!
Chef Scott
I think I have an idea now why my perfectly tempered chocolate bloomed after I dipped some cold candied oranges in it! It cooled too fast! Thanks, Chef!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with such good content, this was easily transforming an advanced quantum physics class to an enjoyable movie premiere (and you sure ran out of tickets). Groupie fan here.
Hi Diego,
Thanks so much for your comment, I’m really glad you liked the post! Sometimes these concepts can be pretty intimidating so hopefully I can introduce more and more cooks to them and show people it doesn’t have to be scary to make great pastry. Lot’s more to come, thanks for being part of the DFK nation!
Cheers – Chef Scott
So Chef, first, thank you for the post: its always good to hear different explanations of chocolate tempering! So I have a question: if I am adding cocoa butter colors to my white chocolate for bon bons, is there a max amount of colored cocoa butter you can/should add before totally throwing off the chocolates natural/factory made composition? I guess what I am curious about is if I am using Valrhonas 33%, instead of say a different brand (specifically couverture) would I be sabotaging myself by adding cocoa butter color to the actual chocolate? Would throwing off the cocoa butter content ruin my temper? Would I be better off just spraying the molds whatever color I desired? Thanks for your help! Love your work! Grateful for the updated blog!
Hi Monica,
You’re welcome! Thanks for checking it out! Great question. The answer is: it depends. I know, I know, bad answer. But there are lots of variables that the answer depends upon – the percentage and brand of the chocolate you’re using (all have widely different viscosity), what you’re using it for, the brand of colorant you’re using, what color you want to achieve, etc. To be really technical, any cocoa butter you add to your chocolate will alter the factory made composition, but that isn’t always a bad thing, and isn’t always noticeable. So I don’t have a hard and fast percentage of cocoa butter you can and can’t add, it’s something you’d have to experiment with to find the balance depending on what your project is. Just remember you can always add a bit more cocoa butter, but you can’t take it away!
Throwing off the cocoa butter content won’t ruin your temper, but it will alter the flavor and texture of the final product if you have to add a lot of color. If you want to create a pale yellow, that won’t take much cocoa butter and you wouldn’t notice much difference at all adding color. If you’re looking to make your chocolate a vibrant purple, that’s a different story. No matter how much cocoa butter you add, you’ll still be able to temper it (you can temper straight cocoa butter actually, but doing so on a table is pretty messy since it’s so thin), but the more cocoa butter added the flatter the flavor and stiffer the chocolate will become.
Valrhona’s chocolate has a pretty low viscosity in general (it’s more fluid than a lot of other chocolates), because they formulate their chocolate to be used in applications like decorations and bon bons. Adding cocoa butter to a thicker chocolate may make it actually easier to use, while adding it to Valrhona may make it a little thin to be ideal. Again, really depends on how much color you’re adding.
Generally, I think if you’re making bon bons it’s easier and more cost effective to just spray the molds. If you color your chocolate and have some left over, you can’t really use it for other applications. If you do want to color the chocolate itself I would start with a measured amount of tempered chocolate – say 500g – and then measure the amount of cocoa butter you add until you find a sort of ratio that you can work with.
I hope that helps! Let me know how your chocolate project goes!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Fantastic explanation of the science behind tempering! Thanks so much. I’m going to make this required reading for my students from now on.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate that, and hopefully we can influence lots of young culinary minds to join us in this craft!
Happy teaching!
Chef Scott
Thank you everyone for your comments and thank you chef for your entertaining explanation and vivid analogies. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, being a visual learner with an overactive imagination. I love “nerding out”, and generally live for stimulating conversations about science and food.
The method of tempering is facenating to me from a scientific perspective. I am definitely looking forward to learning more and practicing the art.
Hi Earl,
Thanks so much for checking out the post! It was great to meet you in person at Pastry Live, don’t ever hesitate to contact me with any questions you might have. Keep baking hard, my friend!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hi Chef, thank you so much for a detailed post. I have a question for cocoa butter, so I am following a paleo/ low carb diet, but I still want to sneak in some good chocolate here. I got some organic cocoa butter and cocoa powder from a supplier, and I wonder if I can make homemade ( choose the amount of sweetness according to my taste) from those ingredients? I did a little research and people said that it will result in a gritty taste, so I want to ask for your opinion on this. Thank you very much!
Hi!
You’re welcome for the post, thanks for taking a look 🙂 The short answer is that nope, you can’t make your own chocolate. Sad, I know. There’s a lot more to chocolate than just cocoa powder and cocoa butter including emulsifiers, milk solids, sugar, etc. There are also special machines that incorporate all of those ingredients together to get the right texture, and that’s why you’ll end up with a gritty texture (and not so pleasant taste) by trying to make chocolate on your own. I think you’d be better off sourcing some high quality organic chocolate instead. There are so many artisanal brands these days that I’m sure something will meet your needs! Hope that helps
Cheers – Chef Scott
Chef Scott:
Your blog posts are a wonder to behold. I love knowing all the details and nerding out!
Regarding keto chocolate, (of course we’re not talking about real chocolate like you make), but it is possible to combine cocoa butter, cocoa powder, allulose faux-sugar (or stevia, monk-fruit or erythritol), and heavy cream (+ optional flavor extracts) to make a fudge-like chocolate that is creamy, not gritty.
It is not “real” chocolate but it certainly hits the flavor spot and I enjoy it a lot more than any of the “keto chocolate bars” I have purchased.
I have recently found a source for unsweetened chocolate in 4 oz bars and plan to make real chocolate using the tempering method in your blog, sweetened with powdered allulose.
If you considered offering gourmet-quality low-glycemic chocolate confections/desserts it would make you world famous (if you aren’t already). Allulose is the first faux sugar I have found that offers traditional sugar flavor and behavior with no aftertaste.
Hi Melanie,
Wow, thanks for such high praise!
You bring up some good ideas and questions. The quick answer is “I don’t know, but yeah, probably.” If you are looking for a fudge consistency, I would add the unsweetened chocolate you mentioned (also called baker’s chocolate) – which is just pure cocoa mass – to the recipe (I happen to have a fudge recipe if you want to check it out and see if you could make a keto version). The trick is in the sugar. How the sugar crystal breaks down and recrystalizes is the secret to proper texture (in conjunction with cocoa butter crystal formation). You would have to experiment with the allulose to see how it reacts (if it comes in crystal form then it’s definitely important to dissolve it thoroughly and slowly to avoid gritty texture. There would definitely be some tweaking involved in the whole process, to balance proper texture with flavor and sweetness, but I think it’s possible! Please let me know if you decide to do testing! Feel free to send me pics or more questions during the process.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hi,
I totally disagree. Cocoa butter plus half cacao/half cocoa, maple syrup or agave, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt makes fantastic dairy free chocolate. I use it to coat pumpkin fudge truffles, peanut butter cups, ginger truffles…the sky’s the limit. Plus, if you use the microwave and melt the cocoa butter in smaller time increments, it tempers the chocolate for you.
Hi Angie,
I have no doubt that the recipe you’ve mentioned will make a chocolate alternative that many people will like! Certainly with a cocoa butter base it will temper/set very similar to a traditional chocolate. I think this is really about subjective taste…without commerical grinders and conching machinery, not to mention the incredible amount of expertise of bean selection and roasting, many people feel (myself included) that homemade chocolate alternatives simply lack the texture and flavor profile of good couverture – particularly if it has the distinct flavor of a sugar alternative like maple.
But of course all that really matters is that you enjoy the product! I’m glad you’ve found a dairy-free chocolate alternative you love!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Finally the science behind tempering chocolate! Everyone always skips this part, but I want to know. Thank you so much, I love this article, very informative, I know so much now.
Hi Brittany,
I’m so glad you were able to gain some new insight from the post!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Is it possible to temper cocoa butter by itself for a health product? Would one use the same principles?
Thank you
Hi Debbie,
Yes, absolutely! Cocoa butter is very thin and fluid so tempering it on a table can be a little tricky, but you could seed the cocoa butter to properly temper it as well. All of the same principles would apply.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Thanks, this informative.
I’m glad you liked the post!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Spectacular article, thank you! I have been playing around with making white chocolate from organic cocao butter (Terrasoul Superfoods), powdered organic sugar, vanilla, and a bit of almond extract. The first couple of tries worked out great. The third try bloomed.
Your post gave me the info to understand why.
Can’t wait to give it another go.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks a lot, I’m glad you liked it! Let me know the process goes, I love doing those kind of tests.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hi Jeff! I just made a batch of dairy and soy free white chocolate and I would love to connect – I don’t find many people making their own white chocolate!! I use cocoa butter, powdered sugar, cornflour and vanilla extract. It’s a bit gritty though… how have your experiments gone?
Chef Scott, thanks for this amazing explanation on tempering!!!
So I have a question…..I’ve been reading up on using cocoa butter silk to temper chocolate. Care to weigh in on the method- plus’s and minus’s?? Seems pretty straight forward- melt chocolate and cool to 93*- add cocoa butter silk that is also at 93* and stir- voila- tempered chocolate. If you do support this method I have another question- do you have to heat your chocolate to 113* first, or can it just be heated to 93* before adding cocoa butter silk?
Looking to possibly purchase an EZ Temper machine, but wanted to get some feedback from knowledgeable sources first :o)
Hi Brianne!
I’m not really on the silk bandwagon, for a couple reasons. I’ve never been a fan of the seeding method of tempering as opposed to tabling. With practice, tabling chocolate is faster, easier (and clean up really isn’t that bad) and gives a better temper. Secondly, it requires you to purchase and extra ingredient, either silk that has been made or cocoa butter that you then temper (which is an annoying process since it’s so fluid). It’s always felt like an unnecessary step to me. Finally, I don’t like the idea of adding tempered cocoa butter as a seed because it will adjust the viscosity, mouth feel, and flavor of the chocolate you’re working with. If you happen to have a chocolate you like but is too thick for your needs, then I could see using the silk method, but otherwise I just stick to tabling. Hope that helps!
Cheers – Chef Scott
This is really an excellent piece and is probably the best summary of the subject I’ve seen to date. One tiny quibble: you say “A refrigerator is a very humid environment” which actually, it isn’t. Anything you leave in a fridge will eventually dry out – it is the opposite of humid. Cold air cannot hold moisture, it is very dry. In contrast, warm air can hold moisture – and this is why condensation immediately develops on cold items when removed from the fringe into warmer air (and is why, as you say, that the fridge is not the place for solid chocolate). But otherwise, well done! 🙂
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the feedback! You’re definitely right about the drying effect of the fridge (and I am certain know much more about the subject than I do!), although I’ll say that I should have clarified that professional walk-in coolers can become quite humid, from the constant opening and closing of the door allowing warm air in, the condensation buildup from cooling compressors/fans, and the large amount of vegetable matter stored in them. Those are the types of coolers I’ll always recommend keeping chocolate out of. Love the comment, thanks for the contribution!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hi Chef Scott! Have you ever tried tempering raw cocoa butter? I’m having trouble with this. I use the same temperatures as white chocolate, but it still melts to the touch. I’m trying to temper cocoa butter to use as a shell layer on top of a bar mold. Thanks in advance!
Hi Linda,
By raw, do you mean tempering it just by itself? Shoot me an email with a product pic if you can and I can help you sort it all out.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hey Chef!
This article rocks (crystallization pun (: )!
Q for you: Roughly how many minutes does the cocoa butter need to be agitated at 82-92 deg. F to grow enough Form 5 crystals to yield the desired chocolate consistency ?
If volume makes a difference here, let’s say we are working with 1 cup of cocoa butter.
Thank you for your help!
Rose
Hi Rose,
Great question! Ultimately, it’s the temperature range, not the agitation, that provides the conditions for crystal growth (crystallization will occur even if the chocolate isn’t agitated), but of course we agitate the chocolate to speed the process and create a homogeneous mixture in crystal consistency and temp.
I know that doesn’t answer the question of how long to agitate, but I’m not sure I have an exact answer for you. I can say that to get to 82-92F/27-33C you’ll either have cocoa butter in a colder state that needs to be warmed, or cocoa butter in a warmer state that needs to be cooled. Either way, agitation will be involved and provide the necessary conditions for crystal development. That chain reaction will continue regardless of agitation once it’s begun, which is why perfectly tempered chocolate will continue to thicken, even if it is gently heated within the temper range (which one might assume would melt the crystals and make a thinner consistency).
Does that chip away at answering your question at all?
Cheers – Chef Scott
Well I am ready to throw In the towel on chocolate. :(.
Coming out very grainy and mushy. Just can’t get beyond it.
Hi Lianne,
Don’t give up! Email me a pic of the chocolate you’re using and the results you’re getting, and I’ll help you out!
Cheers – Chef Scott
I make a mistake.
My chocolate warm up to 92 C°
The flavor is same but the texture change. Can I use thar chocolate for ganache?
Thanks!
Hi Cristian,
I’m surprised the taste wasn’t altered, that’s definitely hot enough to burn the chocolate! If it tastes ok, you could try and use it for ganache. I can’t say if it will set up like it normally should, so maybe make a small batch as a test first. Good luck!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Can I use Merkens candy melts mixed with cocoa butter to add shine and snap to my candy? Or will it get too liquid and soft? Right now I seed the Merkens which is already tempered with a high grade chocolate bar. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am just starting out.
Hi Susie,
Although I haven’t used Merckens before, this product is actually what we call a coating chocolate. Coating chocolates will often have real chocolate as an ingredient, but the predominant ingredient will be a fat like palm or coconut oil which is solid at room temperature. This eliminates the need for tempering the chocolate, which is desirable for some operations, but it comes at the cost of better flavor, texture and the snap and shine you mentioned of a couverture chocolate. Couverture chocolate is a pure chocolate product, and the only fat in it is cocoa butter, which means it absolutely has to be tempered to be used in a situation where the chocolate must set at room temp.
If you’re just getting started in the wonderful world of chocolate, I would suggest buying some couverture chocolate (Guittard makes excellent chocolate – it’s the only brand I use), and practice tempering with that. I think you’ll be really happy with the results! And of course feel free to send me any questions you have.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hi!!!
I’m starting with chocolate and really excited with it!! I’m starting to do the coloring with selfmade color cocoa butter. I want to ask that: Do I need to temper the cocoa butter before adding colors? How to temoer it? How to know that the cocoa butter is tempered? Best way to use the cocoa butter for coating mold chocolate? (I want to make a shiny color for my mold chocolate)
Hi Nquyen,
Congrats on starting to work with chocolate! You don’t really have to temper your cocoa butter, although some chefs do. Personally, I melt it in the microwave (30 seconds at a time), and then cool it to 90-93F / 34-32C. You can really just leave it to cool on its own, but like I said, some chefs will actually temper it to cool it. I prefer using an airbrush to then spray the cocoa butter into a mold (we let the cocoa butter cool to a temperature that’s actually a little too warm, because it will cool down as it leaves the airbrush), but it depends on the look you’re going for. You can use a paint brush or a tooth brush for a speckled effect, or even just your finger. Then let the cocoa butter crystalize fully before you add your chocolate. You can see more of the step by step method in my recipe for bonbons. Good luck and have fun with your new chocolate passion!
Cheers – Chef Scott
I know I’m a little late to the party here, but I have a question. What are the temperatures for tempering cocoa butter? I have looked and looked. I’ve found the temps for dark, milk, and white just not for cocoa butter.
Hi Darci,
You’re never too late to the party! If you’re using cocoa butter for chocolate candies or decorative work, you actually don’t have to temper it. I like to melt my cocoa butter fully, and then simply let it cool on its own to about 89-93F/32-34C. If you really wanted to temper the cocoa butter, you would just follow the same guidelines as a dark chocolate: melt the cocoa butter to 113F/45C, cool to 85F/29.5C and then warm back up to 89F/32C to work with it.
Cheers – Chef Scott
What kind of air brush do I need for spraying dyed cocoa butter? I’m looking to purchase one for a small business.
Hi Jessiah,
If your purposes are for a small business, which means production, then I would go with an auto body gun and an air compressor. I use this compressor, and this gun. I really love Paasche air guns in general, if you gave them a call and told them what you were looking for, they’d be able to help too!
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hi nice article but can u help by leting me know when to add color in Coco butter and once the butter gets cool do we again need to temper again.
Hi Payal,
If you are looking to color your raw cocoa butter, than can be done by adding fat-soluble colorant to the cocoa butter once you melt it. Once the cocoa butter falls out of the tempering range (too hot or too cold) then it will need to be re-tempered to get the best results.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Amazing, thanks!
Hello Dezzzzzzert (I think I added a couple zzz)
Thanks!
Cheers – Chef Scott
What’s the highest fat percentage cocoa butter will temper at?
Was wanting to make a macadamia oil (40%) and Cocoa butter (40%) energy bar. In my melanger.
Just over 80% fat. I’m hoping this will work!!
Hi Julian,
Sorry for the very late relpy on this. Did you test the energy bar? I’d love to hear how it went.
Cheers – Chef Scott
Hello, loved your post and answers to comments! As others I’m just beginning to explore chocolate work. I purchased some second hand molds for Easter and have been having trouble getting the chocolate in all the little nooks and crannies as well the chocolate’s thickness appears to hinder getting all the air bubbles out. I purchased some yupick organic cocoa butter callets and was wondering if I can just put them in with my milk or dark chocolate as I begin the tempering process and that will result in my chocolate flowing better but the end product will still be a shinny and snappy.
Hi Cathy,
So sorry for the late reply! The short answer is yup, you can add cocoa butter to thin chocolate so it’s easier to mold. Different brands of chocolate will use a different amount of cocoa butter, even if the percentage of chocolate is the same (for example a Valrhona 66% chocolate may have more cocoa butter in it than a Guittard 66% chocolate). So you will have to either add cocoa butter to the chocolate that’s available to you so it’s the consistency you want, OR you can look for chocolate that’s meant to be used for chocolate molding. Brands like Cocoa Barry or Guittard will outline the amount of cocoa butter in each chocolate and what it’s best use is.
I hope this helps!
Cheers – Chef Scott