Bournville Bark With Dry Fruits: How To Temper Chocolate At Home

When it comes to making chocolate bark at home, tempering the chocolate becomes the most important step. The process of tempering the chocolate has long been used as a culinary practice to make chocolate treats evenly glossy, smooth, and without the grey patches. There are lots of benefits of tempering the chocolate. If you have ever wondered why your homemade chocolate treats like chocolate bark, chocolate-coated strawberries, and chocolate toppings don't look similarly glossy and smooth as of a bakery or a patisserie, then the answer might be hidden in the tempering process.

What is Tempering?

Tempering refers to the process of heating and cooling the chocolate to a specific temperature so the cocoa butter crystals in it align properly with each other and create a smooth and glossy finish without breaking. This step helps in achieving a shiny smooth surface when you are making treats like chocolate bark which requires freezing the chocolate into solid form. Tempering also helps chocolate bark become crisp and snap when broken. It gets rid of all the white streaks which is called chocolate “bloom” in the culinary term and it also makes the chocolate stable even when it is sitting at room temperature.

Tempering is the controlled process of melting and cooling the chocolate to make it perfectly smooth, glossy, and snappy. Without tempering, chocolate looks dull, soft, and has white streaks. You can tell that a chocolate bar is not made with tempered chocolate when it melts at room temperature, melts right as you touch them, gets white streaks on it which makes it look greyish and not the deep brown color, and it just blends or crumbles instead of snapping cleanly.

When the chocolate is tempered, it shines like glass, snaps with a clean cut, and stays firm even at room temperature. Chocolate bark made with tempered chocolate tastes smooth with every bite and melts beautifully in your mouth, leaving a rich and comforting sensation behind. Therefore, tempering becomes crucial when you are making treats like chocolate barks, dipped truffle, chocolate coated fruits, and chocolate decorations like chocolate shards and tuile. If you are wondering how to temper chocolate at home, follow the steps below.

How to Temper Chocolate at Home using a Stovetop?

For tempering the chocolate, you will need a heatproof bowl, a saucepan, a rubber spatula, and a kitchen thermometer. It's perfectly fine if you don’t have a kitchen thermometer, however, it is ideal to have a thermometer to measure the temperature and keep it consistent throughout the process. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can check the temperature of chocolate with your fingers, the chocolate should feel slightly cooler than your body temp but it should still be fluid.

Steps to temper the chocolate:

• Chop the chocolate into fine pieces. Divide it into 2 parts — ¾ for melting and ¼ to seed the chocolate and cool it. Seeding chocolate means adding small pieces of unmelted chocolate to the melted chocolate to help it cool and set with a smooth, glossy finish and crisp snap.
• Set up a double boiler. Heat up some water in a saucepan until it starts to steam but not boil. Place the chocolate bowl on top of the saucepan and make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Let the steam setting below the bowl melt the chocolate. Stir it constantly until chocolate melts and reaches 45–50°C. Once melted, remove the bowl immediately.
• Seed the chocolate with the remaining unmelted chopped chocolate and stir until it is fully dissolved. This will cool down the chocolate up to 31–32°C which is perfect to temper the dark chocolate.

Your chocolate is now tempered and ready to make Bournville bark with dry fruits.

Here’s a simple recipe to make Bournville bark with dry fruits:

Ingredients:

• 200g Cadbury Bournville dark chocolate
• ½ cup mixed dry fruits, chopped like almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts
• 1 tbsp raisins or cranberries
• Pinch of sea salt or cinnamon

Assembling the Bark:

Step 1: Roast Dry fruits

Dry roast chopped nuts on low heat for 2 to 3 minutes.

Step 2: Pour and Spread

Pour the tempered chocolate on a parchment lined baking sheet and spread it to about ½ cm thickness.

Step 3: Top with nuts

Sprinkle roasted nuts, raisins, cranberries, and a pinch of salt or cinnamon over the spread chocolate.

Step 4: Set and Break

Leave it at room temperature to cool down for 10 minutes then refrigerate it for 20 to 30 minutes until it is firm. Snap the chocolate into uneven shaped barks and enjoy.