Tempering...

Yesterday was pretty terrible.  It isn't that I don't enjoy tempering by hand - I'm actually glad that the machine is broken so that I can really learn how to do it - it's when I spend an entire day trying to temper and it doesn't.

I was working with dark and milk chocolate.  Most of the day was spent standing in front of the microwave putting the chocolate in on defrost for one minute increments and then stirring and checking the temperature.  You can get cancer if you stand too close to the microwave?  Right?

Chopped milk chocolate, waiting to be melted.

I melted the chocolate and brought each up to it's respective high temperature.  For dark it is 114˚f and for milk it 111˚f.  Then I let the temperature drop and seed the chocolate.  Seeding the chocolate involves either throwing in more unmelted chocolate or shaving in cocoa butter.  This allows the chocolate to have a stable crystal base - the whole point of tempering is to make sure the crystallization process is at the correct point.  My chemist friends are probably laughing at my description, cough, Molly Matty.

Once the chocolate has been seeded you wait for it to drop in temperature even more.  For the dark I got down to 86˚f and for the milk it was 84˚f.  Then you raise the temperature back up to: dark - 88˚f and milk 86˚f.

Then it is in temper, supposedly.  But, every time I enrobed my first chocolate looked just as fresh as my last and didn't set it all.  They just sat there covered in shiny melted chocolate.

I tempered the dark three times and the milk once - and that was my entire day.

It's frustrating and stressful.  I know it isn't my fault that it didn't come to temper, but I can't help but feel that I am holding everyone else up.  How do you make chocolate bars without tempered chocolate?  Or how does any new product come out if all of the ganache sits there ready to be enrobed?

And, I get to try again today.  Deep breath.

Although yesterday seemed all together ruined, my cousin Lilly Lampe and her friend Elizabeth Stice came by the shop to record their podcast Out There Atlanta.  Who doesn't like to be interviewed after their first week of work?

From left to right:  Elizabeth Stice, Lilly Lampe, and Taria Camerino (my boss and chocolate superhuman).

Out There Atlanta is a new podcast that covers a wide range of topics - SCR, Steady Hand Pour House, Oakwood Cemetery, etc. - that all fit under the umbrella of all things Atlanta.

You can listen to their podcast on iTunes and check out their page at www.outthereatlanta.tumblr.com.

I'm interviewed, along with everyone else at SCR and it is worth a listen.  Particularly if you miss hearing my voice.

Lilly also snagged a picture of me in my daily uniform behind the counter - this one's for you Mom and Dad.

Yes.  There is a little chocolate on my face.  This was pre-tempering disaster.  Notice the smile.