Tempering Raw Chocolate

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Lollia on April 27, 2010 at 8:08pm

Hi Olga,

Yes it is possible: tempering raw chocolate is not fundamentally different than tempering roasted chocolate. Although your ingredients and recipes will surely influence the results.

Have you tried it yet?

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Permalink Reply by Olga C on April 28, 2010 at 3:18am

Hi, David,

Thank you for your input.

From what I read, chocolate needs to be heated to a certain temperature in order to break all types of crystals. The temperatures are quite high (don't remember the exact t though).

Also, if tempering by hand, you'd need seeds, right? Where do you get seeds of tempered raw chocolate?

No, I haven't tried to temper as I don't have a tempering machine yet and do not know how to temper by hand without the seeds.

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Permalink Reply by David Lollia on April 28, 2010 at 8:36pm

Here is a comment by Brad Churchill about tempering by hand without seeds. I regularly use a similar technique and I’ve been quite happy with it.

Heating up to 120F might be too high to fit in your raw definition though but you’ll probably be able to temper without going over 115F. The best is to experiment I suppose.

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Permalink Reply by Olga C on April 30, 2010 at 12:04am

Thank you very much for the link, David. It's really helpful. I have a better understanding of the process now.

I'll experiment this weekend.

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Permalink Reply by Olga C on May 2, 2010 at 4:41am

Well, I've tried to temper raw chocolate at 115 F today and I don't think it worked. In about an hour or so after I took the ready bar out of the fridge, it became soft, leathery and certainly wouldn't snap. It melts between fingers almost straight away.

Maybe it's the recipe that I need to change? Having said that, this is the exact same recipe that one raw chocolate company uses and their chocolate is pretty good.

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Permalink Reply by David Lollia on May 2, 2010 at 10:53am

Many raw chocolate recipes I’ve seen use coconut oil, liquid sweeteners (agave, maple, honey…) and additional ‘superfood’ powders (mesquite, lucuma, maca, etc.)

If you use any of these you’ll have to find the right proportions to be able to temper properly. And I’m not even sure that you can temper chocolate containing coconut oil.

Also liquid sweeteners are difficult to use as they tend to seize the chocolate in a thick paste (maybe the cause of the leathery texture you’ve got…)

Anyway you’ll definitely need a substantial amount of cacao fats in your recipe because this is what is tempered.

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Permalink Reply by Olga C on May 3, 2010 at 6:24am

Hi David,

My recipe doesn't have coconut oil, but it does have agave. Other ingredients are cacao butter, cacao powder, fresh vanilla and a pinch of Himalayan salt.

Next time I will try to increase the amount of cacao butter (at the moment, it's at 55%) and see if it works.

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Permalink Reply by David Lollia on May 3, 2010 at 10:41am

Olga,

You should not need to add more cacao butter than that. Have you already tried to do the same recipe without tempering? Does it end with the same leathery texture? Is the molten mixture fluid or quite thick?

From what I can see either you didn’t temper it properly (not stiring enough, wrong temperatures…) either the moisture in agave syrup is upsetting the balance somehow (the quantity, but also the order in which you put it might be critical).

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Permalink Reply by holycacao on May 3, 2010 at 2:11pm

The raw cacao that I have tasted here is more like a hard ganache in texture, its no wonder you need to use so much cocoa butter with the water content of he agave syrup. It sounds super fattening (55% ccb + the ccb from the powder up to 22%. If the chocolate (can it legally be called chocolate since it is made with agave?) is mixed well - like a ganache it could be tabled like ganache before being cooled. But this is still not really tempering.

Permalink Reply by Olga C on May 4, 2010 at 3:45am

Hi David,

I've done the same recipe without tempering in the past. Surprisingly, the end result was better.

The molten mixture is pretty runny, not thick at all.

You may be right about me not having stirred enough.

The order in which I put the ingredients in is as follows:
cacao powder --> melted cacao butter --> agave --> vanilla & salt.

Permalink Reply by Olga C on May 4, 2010 at 3:56am

Hi holycacao,

I agree that it tastes more like ganache after it's been out of the fridge for a while. Straight from the fridge it looks and tastes a lot like cooked chocolate.

Permalink Reply by Alan McClure on May 3, 2010 at 11:31am

What do you mean by: "tried to temper raw chocolate at 115 F today?"

Chocolate will not be tempered at 115 F. Can you explain the exact process that you used? It will then be easy to trouble shoot that way.

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