Page 362 - Pie It Forward: Pies, Tarts, Tortes, Galettes, and Other Pastries Reinvented

A NOTE FROM THE SWEETIE PIE TEMPERING CHOCOLATE

If you’ve eaten a fresh, high-quality bar of chocolate, you’ve
experienced chocolate in perfect temper. That means it’s shiny
and snaps when you break it. Sometimes, chocolate is stored in
warm conditions, melts a bit, and then cools again. When you
unwrap that particular bar of chocolate, you may notice white

streaking that looks almost like mold. It’s not. What you are seeing
is chocolate out of temper. The consistency is also different; you
won’t get that satisfying snap when you break it apart.
Unless you get your chocolate to the perfect temper and
temperature, the transfer design won’t adhere when you spread it
onto a transfer sheet. This is why people often prefer to use a

chocolate candy coating that adheres to the chocolate transfer
easily, as you need only melt and spread a thin layer without the
technicalities of tempering. (Wilton is the most available brand.)
However, candy coatings contain palm oils and paraffin, and the
taste, compared to a high-quality tempered chocolate, is never
quite the same. I recommend tempering for that reason but
recognize the ease and the significant time (and monetary)

difference of using widely available chocolate candy coatings
instead.
You must use a high-quality chocolate for tempering; the stuff
you buy at the checkout at the grocery ain’t gonna cut it—it
doesn’t have the cocoa-butter content needed. Buy a high-quality

chocolate like Callebaut, Lindt, or Valrhona.
Getting chocolate to the right temperature and into temper
requires a nice amount of chocolate, and you rarely use the entire
amount that you temper. You can always use the leftover
chocolate for something else later.

To Temper Chocolate
1
. Have a digital, instant-read thermometer ready. Chop the
required amount of your high-quality chocolate into very small
pieces, making sure to keep the pieces uniform so they melt
evenly.