The Nuts and Bolts of Tempering Chocolates

Don’t delude yourself into thinking chocolate candy making is as easy as sautéing food. Since it involves maintaining of specific temperatures accurately while tempering by hand, even expert chocolate makers consider it a challenging proposition.

With the ingredients and utensils you’ll be needing it’s easy to think that creating chocolate confections is in fact straightforward: dark, semi-sweet or white chocolate, a calibrated thermometer, a double boiler or an electric skillet, a rubber spatula, candy molds or cookie cutters, and fruits.

The steps to prepare them are just as straightforward: melting the chocolate in a double boiler; stirring so it doesn’t burn; enrobing fruits in chocolate or pouring molten chocolate into cookie cutters to mold them; and letting them set in a chiller briefly before serving.

But what makes chocolate candy making difficult is the need for tempering and the subsequent requirement to monitor temperatures and keep them level at all times. Since tempering is key to turning out shiny and crisp chocolates, you cannot skip it if you want your chocolates to be as attractive as possible. For one, it stops blooming from occurringthe formation of unattractive crystals on the surface of chocolates. You can make chocolate confections without tempering if your confections are for “private eyes” only but if selling them is your aim, you’ll need to make them creamy, glossy, and firm hence you’ll need to temper.

If you’re not going to dip and mold and just repack chocolates for retail, you won’t need to temper because chocolates from the manufacturers are already perfectly tempered. But once chocolate is subjected to melting temperatures for dipping and molding, then that temper is lost so you need to temper again.

There’s a reason for this. Cocoa butter has large quantities of fatty acids that crystallize into six and when they’re heated, they detach from their crystal bonds and begin re-crystallizing. When this happens, your aim is to prevent the five other crystal types from hampering the production of type V crystals without which the shine and snap will be non-existent in chocolates. The temperatures at which these type V crystals form differ for dark, semi-sweet and milk chocolates. Additionally, Type IV crystals also form but this crystal structure’s useless since they melt away fast. It’s the stable type V crystals that stays firm longer.

An accurate thermometer, calibrated regularly, will be indispensable for keeping an eye on correct temperature ranges. If you compromise on this accuracy, you’ll find you’ll need to repeat tempering. Just to escape from this kind of tedium, most candy makers have shifted to using automated tempering machines in which you have a computer chip that takes care of this step. You’re also sure of producing only the type V crystals. Tempering machines make available to you a lot of free time so that you can be more active on improving your skills which amounts to improving your business.

Facts to Consider while Buying Glass Sinks

Sinks made of glass are probably the most recent ones to have entered the market. These types of sinks are ideal for those who love to turn their bathrooms and kitchens into an exquisite art piece. Apart from looking elegant and ravishing, glass sinks match well with both traditional and contemporary bathrooms and kitchen designs.

However, one must consider certain facts while planning to purchase a glass sink.
The foremost factor is the durability. Although glass sinks are considerably durable, they are not as strong as a ceramic or porcelain sink. The glass used in the sink manufacturing must be tempered and thick so that it can withstand activities such as shaving, brushing teeth or applying make-up that require gushing water flow. Appropriate space must be provided for installing glass sinks. These sinks require slightly bigger space than other types of sinks so as to minimize the risk of breaking. It is wise to install a glass sink in areas that do not have much traffic or in houses where people know how and when to use these sinks.

Glass sinks may not be ideal in a family with young children or homes having a single bathroom. Last point is the price range. Depending on the quality and the strength of glass used, the price of glass sinks can be anything between $50 and $10,000. One should never buy a sink that comes at low price and doesn’t carry any warranty.

Kitchen countertops and sinks make the most heavy of renewal work, find out more about these home improvement elements.