The use of oven as a device to temper molten Dark Chocolate

Tempering is one of the most important processes in chocolate making. Tempering is needed to ensure that chocolate has correct melting point, hardness, snap and gloss. After tempering, cocoa butter crystallises in polymorphic form beta V, resulting in chocolate with melting point in the range of 33-34°C. This work investigated the impact of crystal maturation duration and holding time of tempering process on hardness and appearance of dark chocolate. Five durations of crystal maturation, namely 1,3,5,and 7 days and five holding time namely 3,6,9,12,15 and minutes were used as variables. The results showed that hardness of chocolate had propensity to increase as the maturation duration was prolonged. Similar trend was also observed as the holding time increased. With regard to the colour, the L*, a* and b* values tended to decrease as the duration of crystal maturation increased. The use oven method, thus, seemed to have potential for small-scale production of dark chocolate.