Chocolatier's temper chocolate to make the final chocolates shiny and to add a nice crisp breakage to the final product. Home cooks can easily temper chocolate for their creations as well. Tempering your chocolate isn't nearly as difficult as you may think. If you don't properly temper chocolate, it will "bloom" or show gray streaks all over the chocolate.

There are several methods for tempering chocolate but the two simplest for the home candy creator are called "seeding" and "tabling." In order to do either of these methods, it is important that you choose chocolate that is the real thing. No chocolate-flavored melts can be tempered - actually they don't need tempering but they also don't taste very good. Chocolate being tempered must have a real cocoa butter base. Even "real" white chocolate needs to be tempered. Chocolate with a greater percentage of cacao will produce a shinier, snappier finish. All chocolate should be melted using a double boiler method on the stove top.

Seeding. The seeding method of tempering chocolate is done by adding chocolate pieces back into your melted chocolate. Chocolate bars should be chopped into small bits before melting. Don't try to temper chocolate chips since they have such a high sugar content. You should chop the bars into very small bits and melt your chocolate to a temperature of 110 degrees on a candy thermometer. At this point, add your unmelted chocolate to the pot to temper the chocolate. Allow the melted chocolate to cool to about 90-95 degrees before attempting to dip and coat your candies. The right temperature depends on the type and quality of chocolate. Milk chocolate can be tempered at around 95 degrees, while very high butter fat content chocolate needs a lower temperature of around 90 degrees.

Tabling. Tabling is another method of tempering chocolate. While this method is a little more involved, it is the preferred method of most chocolatiers. Tabling requires you to transfer about a third of your melted chocolate to a marble slab. Once the melted chocolate hits the marble slab, use a metal spatula to work the pile of chocolate back and forth across the marble slab until it has formed a pliable mound of somewhat cooled chocolate. Continue working the chocolate until it reaches the 90-95 degree range.

Tempering chocolate is certainly an extra step when coating candies. Tempering chocolate indeed does take some time, but it isn't a particularly difficult step and the results are worth it if you want to create beautiful candy. The next time you make dipped candies, try tempering your chocolate for gorgeous, professional-looking results.