Today, eventually, I managed to temper a batch of chocolate.  This was necessary since, in order to finish my Chocolate and Red Wine cake for the local village show (recipe taken from Claire Clark's amazing cookbook, "Indulge" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Indulge-Perfect-Desserts-Claire-Clark/dp/1906650136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315603420&sr=8-1) chocolate rectangles are meant to be used to decorate the outside of the cake.

To make the chocolate rectangles, tempered dark chocolate is spread relatively thickly and hopefully evenly onto acetate sheets.  These sheets are then left in the fridge until cold (with the edges pinned down to prevent curling), then carefully divided into rectangles.  Then all that's left is to peel the chocolate away from the acetate, without it all snapping or crumbling into a million small pieces.  I have attempted this process twice today; first batch went wrong.  I did not temper it, because I read in a reputable cookbook that chocolate which is already tempered (i.e any supermarket chocolate) does not need to be tempered again, so long as it is heated very slowly. I failed to heed the "very slowly" part, and instead microwaved the chocolate.  Needless to say, the resulting chocolate rectangles were soft and bloomed. Very unattractive - not at all suitable for decorative work. 

This meant that I now had a batch of truly untempered chocolate all stuck to acetate sheets, and about half a bar of tempered chocolate.  So, I scraped the chocolate off the sheets and tried again.  (By this stage I seemed to have used every spare piece of crockery and cutlery in the kitchen.) Using Paul A. Young's (a Chocolatier) method for tempering the chocolate by "seeding", I succeeded in retempering the chocolate which I messed up earlier.

(A summery of the seeding method:  Put 2/3 of chocolate required into a heatproof bowl above a pan of cold water.  Very slowly, over the course of at least an hour, heat up the water to melt the chocolate. Do not allow the water to boil, or even simmer. Chocolate must not exceed 55 degrees C (which it won't, so long as the water does not boil). When the chocolate is melted, take the bowl off the heat and add the remaining 1/3 of the chocolate.  This third must be tempered chocolate, not untempered, since this is used to "seed" the molecules in the heated chocolate into setting in the right formation. Stir until all the chocolate is melted.  Cool this mixture until it hits 28-27 degrees, or until it's just beginning to harden.  Now, very carefully and slowly, reheat until 32-33 degrees, or until it's just become liquid again, but no further - this is the "working temperature". Heating past this stage will undo all the hard work you've just done.)  I actually got interrupted at the cooling stage - fairly sure my chocolate was below 27 degrees when I heated it again, however it still worked just fine.


This, spread onto the acetate and chilled, produced acceptable rectangles, which, most importantly, did not bloom.  (Picture of the cake to follow- as yet it is still unsoaked, unglazed and undecorated).