tempered chocolate?

Tempered chocolate just means that your chocolate has a smooth shiny appearance. Tempering chocolate means that you slowly melt your chocolate without over heating and stirring gently to avoid bubbles. HTH

How to temper chocolate:

http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how-to-temper-chocolate.html

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2005/08/tempering-choco/

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/155/Tempering-Chocolate

HTH

Some of the above posts make it sound very simple. It is not.

I have several books on tempering chocolate and have taken classes as well. I can describe exactly how to follow the seeding method and generally tell you how to "table temper" the chocolate complete with all the temperature curves, but it doesn't always work as it should in practice. You need just the right amount of seed and the right amount of agitation. If it isn't done precisely, you will end up with streaks or blotches in your chocolate after a few hours or a day.

If you decide to temper chocolate, do it a few times to make sure you have the basics down and leave yourself extra time If you don't want to temper chocolate, you can use"coating chocolate" or "chocolate melts" , which don't need tempering, because they don't contain cocoa butter. Chocolate chips are difficult or impossible to temper.

I'm going to take some more lessons in January to see if I can perfect the art It is definitely a worthwhile skill to possess.

Itsacake is correct. Tempering chocolate is an art.

Here's another thread going on right now about which [chocolate] candy coating people like to best.
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-7236166-.html#7236166

Even if you are careful with tempering, it can be a finicky process not always with good results. As I wrote in that thread, I often use candy melts with real chocolate to avoid tempering. Combining the two not only adds a nice flavor to the melts but it also avoids the "morning after" problem we can see with tempering.

Tempering is melting chocolate in such a way so as to control the type of crystals that are formed in the chocolate so that the melted, worked with, and then cooled chocolate pieces will have the same qualities that we are used to in chocolate, like shiny appearance, crisp break, stays set with no cloudiness or streaks. The process involved getting the chocolate to certain temperatures in order, then "seeding" it with the proper crystals (basically unmelted chocolate) to get the melted chocolate to form the right crystals. That is what makes it fairly complicated, because it is easy to get the different temperatures wrong.

You can buy chocolate tempering machines that will do some of the temperature control work for you. I have one from Dove Chocolate Discoveries that I really like, though it only does small-ish batches. Before I got the machine, I only really used the candy melts.

I agree with others, though, that it is a worthwhile process to learn!

I have a book "Le Cordon Bleu, Dessert Techniques". In the tempering section this book states that "Unlike cooking chocolate, eating chocolate does NOT need to be tempered." Because I have no desire or time for that matter to play with tempering chocolate....I have been melting hershey kisses/candy bars for my chocolate coating and it works great!!

(Hi Mimi, I'm Serena from HVBS. I always learn sooo..much from your expertise!! Thank-you!!)

Hi Serena, so nice to meet you here! And I just learned something from you: I had no idea that eating chocolate bypasses the tempering process. That big milk chocolate candy bar my husband squirreled away is now mine. (I'm bringing dipped cookies to our Hudson Valley Baking Society cookie exchange. See you there?)

First time I've heard about mixing the two together AND about eating chocolate. So.....if I break up a Hershey bar (or other REAL chocolate with cocoa butter) and melt in the microwave along with an equal amount of Guittard A'Peels, I'll get the same workability and appearance with an improved taste?

Mo63~~The "taste" difference between compound coating and REAL chocolate is a function of the cocoa butter which lingers on the tongue and releases the flavor slowly and ends with a flavor note that lingers in the mouth with a wonderful mouth feel. Compound coatings do not possess the cocoa butter, hence the 'taste' and 'mouth feel' and 'after-taste' are lessened (or outright eliminated if you are a chocolate connoisseur 'who enjoys with discrimination and appreciation of subtleties').

Unless you are a purist, it is difficult to tell the difference if you are using an excellent quality of compound coating like Guittard A'Peels or Merckens.
Manufacturing compound coatings is MUCH, MUCH cheaper since hydrogenated palm (or other) oils are substituted for the cocoa butter. (Example: Much of the really awful Easter candy is made with a super-cheap compound coating.) Since coatings do not require tempering, they can be used for many, many applications and are perfect for hobby bakers or professional bakers.

Chocolate that is made into "chips" has added hardeners to keep the "chip" shape. That is why itsacake said, "Chocolate chips are difficult or impossible to temper. "

Apti, I don't even measure when melting, it's just an approximation. It's always been a success. And I often use chocolate chips, not a good-quality bar chocolate. I love dipping sandwiched cookies because they work well in cookie trays. Here are some pictures http://bakingfix.com/thefix/?p=5396

"Eating chocolate," like a Hershey bar, is already tempered so sometimes you can melt it without it losing it's temper and then use it. You have to melt is slowly and until just barely melted, then stir to melt the rest of the way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it will lose its temper and all of the qualities that go along with tempered chocolate. (Ha - "lose its temper" - sometimes it does feel like it's just mad at you! )