[music 0:00:00] Michael Laiskonis: Today, we're going to be
Dana Cowin: When we have the tempered chocolate, what can you do with it?
Michael Laiskonis: We can do almost anything with it. It's more a question of what you
can't do with untempered chocolate. Dana Cowin: What you can't do
Michael Laiskonis: So you can't take untempered chocolate and mold it. It's just never going
to come out of the mold. I have some dark chocolate, it's been melted. For most of us,
the quickest way to melt chocolate is just over a double boiler. Be careful though that
we don't let any water get in our chocolate. And the perfect tool is the microwave. Just
short increments, maybe 30 seconds at a time stirring between each one until it's melted.
So melt it above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Dana Cowin: I didn't know that.
Michael Laiskonis: So it melts all of those possible crystal formations. So we're staring
fresh. We can--we're well over that, we're going to wait for it.
Dana Cowin: That is some fun gadget. Michael Laiskonis: encourage beginners to
use a thermometer. We're going to dump out about two-thirds of this right onto the marble
set. It's always good to temper at least a pound of chocolate, sometimes even two.
Dana Cowin: And will it stay tempered once you temper it?
Michael Laiskonis: Well, that's the reason why it's better to do a slightly larger quantity
because the temper is going to fluctuate so much. In my right hand I have a little trowel,
in my left an offset spatula. I'm going to start moving this around on the marble using
all the available surface space. And the marble is actually pulling heat from the chocolate.
Dana Cowin: Uh-huh. Michael Laiskonis: And with constant agitation
and that drop in temperature, we're creating that optimal crystal structure. Do you want
to give this a shot? Just spread it out and then scoop it back up to the middle.
Dana Cowin: Cool. Michael Laiskonis: So I'm going to actually
take a little bit of a temperature here, we're going to switch sides.
Dana Cowin: See how we did. Michael Laiskonis: Basically we want to get
down to about 84 to 86 degrees, and look where we are.
Dana Cowin: Oh, 85. Michael Laiskonis: 85 exactly.
Dana Cowin: Yes. Michael Laiskonis: We still have about one-third
of the original weight of chocolate over here in the bowl that is still warm. So we just
take the bowl down here and very carefully Dana Cowin: That is very low tech.
Michael Laiskonis: keep it off the kitchen floor. Overall temperature is going to rise
to about 88, 89, 90 degrees. And that's going to be an optimal working temperature for it.
Dana Cowin: And how do you store tempered chocolate if you have extra?
Michael Laiskonis: You just let it set up. What I like to do is use it for any other
pastry application or what you can do is you can chop it up into very fine bits and use
that for a different method of tempering that I'll show you next.
Dana Cowin: Oh, okay. Michael Laiskonis: This is what's called seeding.
I'm going to use this towel. Any time we're working on a cold surface, we don't want the
chocolate on the bottom of the bowl to start to set on us. But it also create a nonskid
surface here for us. So we have roughly two-thirds of our desired end amount of chocolate and
we're going to add to that about one-third of already tempered chocolate. We're going
to actually seed the uncrystalized chocolate with the already formed crystals that we're
looking for. You want to start stirring that for me?
Dana Cowin: Sure. Michael Laiskonis: Pastry chefs love hardware
stores. Dana Cowin: Apparently.
Michael Laiskonis: Just a little gentle heat. Dana Cowin: Oh, like a blow-dryer would do.
Michael Laiskonis: Can keep that warm. Dana Cowin: And how long will it stay sort
of in a liquid state, before it sets? Michael Laiskonis: Again, that really depends
on the ambient room temperature, 70 to 72 degrees is really the optimum. Just to take
a little test. So I'm going to do this. You could use a piece of paper, a plastic spoon,
a spatula and we're going to let that sit two to three minutes. It's nice and glossy.
Dana Cowin: Very shiny. Michael Laiskonis: If I touch it, I don't
make fingerprint so we're in a great place now. We're going to do a very simple molding
technique. So we have some bars here. So just a little quick buff.
Dana Cowin: Where did you get the molds? Michael Laiskonis: There are so many great
online sources now. So I'm going to take some of the tempered chocolate and I'll lay it
all, it goes go right in. Tap all that in. We want to tap that and shake it because there's
a lot of air bubbles in this chocolate. Any little excess can very carefully just go right
back into the bowl. Dana Cowin: Ah-ha. So this is the bricklayer
technique. Michael Laiskonis: Exactly. We set that to
the side to set up. So once we're ready, we just take our molds.
Dana Cowin: Wow. Michael Laiskonis: And you see, we're
Dana Cowin: Those are beautiful. Michael Laiskonis: You hear the snap.
Dana Cowin: Oh, beautiful little snap. Michael Laiskonis: And I can hold this and
it's not going to melt in my hands. Dana Cowin: That's really good.
[music 0:04:35.2] [Audio Ends]
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