Chocolate tempering (was Re: [Sca-cooks] NY Times article...)

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Margaret commented:
> > They're status symbols, as are single-use kitchen gadgets. The
> > best is a hugely expensive single-use kitchen gadget (says the woman who
> > is contemplating a Revolation II chocolate temperer). It's why the king
> > always had more concubines than anybody else.
>
> Concubines are single-use? :-) And all women can be expensive.

Well, they're for one particular purpose, usually. I'm defining
'single-use' as 'has only one purpose'. I should probably say
'single-purpose' instead.
 >
>
> What is a "Revolation II chocolate temperer"?

Umm. It tempers chocolate.

Chocolate is a very temperamental critter. When you work with it, you have
to melt it, then work it to a particular temperature (~85F) and keep
it there while you're doing your dipping/coating/whatever. What you are
doing is making sure that the cocoa butter doesn't separate out and stays
homogenized. Cocoa butter will recrystallize in large crystals if you let
it, so the tempering process keeps the crystals small and thus preserves
the proper nature of the chocolate. And then there's the keeping water out
of it (when you melt chocolate over hot water, there is always the risk of
vapor condensing in the wrong place and dripping in the chocolate, causing
it to seize and requiring you to beat lots of fat back into it to recover
it).

If you're going to be working with a lot of chocolate, or have limited
counter space, or limited patience, having a machine do the work for you
is a wonderful thing. Unless you have my grandfather's ability--he had
been working with chocolate so long that he could melt, temper, and dip
without ever measuring the temperature or anything, and his chocolate
never bloomed (blooming is when the chocolate gets too warm for too
long and the cocoa butter melts out and recrystallizes on the surface).

Unfortunately I wasn't interested in working with chocolate when he still
had the ability, and so I never learned that particular skill.

The Revolation II is the higher-end amateur model of chocolate temperer
put out by Chocovision (www.chocovision.com) as a successor to their
Sinsation I and II. The professional models are spiffier--their high-end
model can do 10 lb of chocolate at a time (the Revolation I and II hold
only 1.5 lb) and is programmable and stuff, and also costs $4500.

Conveniently, I can rent an RII from one of our local chi-chi kitchen
stores, if I really want to. I don't do enough with chocolate to justify
buying one, but that doesn't prevent me from wanting it anyway.

Margaret