The chocolate and sugar block has started. For the next 6 weeks, I'll be using the word "temper" quite a bit so here's a quick explanation....The biggest use of chocolate is for coating. To give it a nice shine and to make it resistant to melting in your hand, raw chocolate needs to be tempered. I'll use dark chocolate (is there any other kind) as an example. Melt approximately 70% of your chocolate over a double boiler and do not exceed 120F. Toss in the remaining 30% of your chocolate (off heat) and stir until melted. Continue stirring until it cools to 84F. Flash it back over the double boiler until it is in the 86 - 89F range. You can now dip your ganache balls to get a nice coating that will shine and won't melt in your hand. note: if you go over 90 during the reheating, it's no good and you need to start over. Milk chocolate and white chocolate have different temperature requirements but it's the same procedure.
