Tempering is useful so that the chocolate is just right: neither too soft so that it melts in your hands nor too hard that it does not melt in your mouth. To apply it, you must heat the chocolate twice at different temperatures by following these steps.
The recipe
(For a mold of 21 chocotejas)
Ingredients:
500 grams of bitter chocolate couverture, also known as dark chocolate
200 grams of pecans in halves
250 grams of manjar blanco
In addition, a mold for chocotejas, spatulas and kitchen thermometer.
It is very important to use real bitter or dark chocolate. Keep this in mind when buying it, as it is common for us to be offered products that contain other components and the final result will not be what we want.
Preparation:
Place the chocolate pieces in a bowl in a bain-marie. Turn off the heat and melt only with the heat of the steam. Use a kitchen thermometer to properly monitor the temperature.
When it exceeds 45 ºC you must remove. At this point, you've already managed to melt the chocolate, but you can't pour it into the mold yet. Before you must remove it and let it cool down to 27 or 28 ºC.
Heat it up again, but now only to 31 or 32ºC.
Now you can pour it into the chocotejas mold.
Remove excess chocolate and let cool with the mold upside down.
When it has completely hardened, fill the molds with manjar blanco and pecans.
Cover with more chocolate and let cool again at room temperature.
[Put stages of preparation]
Why should we melt 2 times?
To understand it, it is important to understand that cocoa butter -which is mainly responsible for the texture of chocolate- has 6 possible solid phases. Between phases I and IV, the chocolate melts at low temperatures, between 17 and 27 ºC. For this reason, it quickly melts in our hands, it stains us, and it cannot be enjoyed properly. Phase V is the best. In it the chocolate melts at 33 ºC. This means that it will not melt in your hands (which usually have a temperature of 27 ºC) but it will melt when it reaches your mouth (which is normally around 36 ºC), which makes it impact all our senses in an ideal way. In phase VI the chocolate melts at higher temperatures and generates a very hard chocolate that melts very slowly in the mouth. When melting for the first time at more than 45ºC, we managed to melt all the crystals, even those of phase V. When doing it for the second time, but at a lower temperature (33 ºC), crystals are formed again, but basically those of phase V and almost none of other phases, which is what we are looking for. With this we will be able to ensure that all your chocolate has the perfect texture and that it only melts in your mouth.
23 авг 2024
