Last week we explored the nature of chocolate, food of the gods. I learned from our Harold McGee text, “On Food and Cooking”, that the first cacao substance was actually a sipping liquid in Central and South America where the nectar was flavored with a number of ingredients vanilla, chili, wild honey, and achiote. In the 17th century, Europeans began experimenting with solid forms of the cacao bean…and hence the birth of the confectionary we know and love today.
We learned that there are six different fat crystals, only two of which are in a stable condition. A highly meticulous process of tempering allows the stable crystal types to gather most of the fat molecules to themselves before the unstable crystals begin to form. These preferred crystals will predominate in melted chocolate if the confectioner carefully maintains the temperatures above the melting point of unstable crystals but below the melting point of stable crystals. This tempering range is 88-90 degrees Fahrenheit for dark chocolate. One can carefully melt the chocolate and slowly bring it down to this range or “seed” the liquid with solids already in the ideal structure.
High quality chocolate is glossy, dry, and hard, featuring a beautiful crisp snap when broken. When chocolate is cooled in an uncontrolled way, the fat molecules form loosely packed, unstable crystals and the chocolate is soft and greasy.
Therefore, crystalline structural arrangements are critical in determining the quality of the chocolate. Consider this the next time you eat a chocolate bar that re-solidified after melting…you may want to temper it on a double-burner before sticking that now inferior chocolate in your mouth.
Indulge…temper that chocolate.
