36.4 Couverture and tempering

What couverture is

Top quality chocolate usually goes by the name couverture. Couverture carries extra cocoa butter. Dark, milk and white chocolate can each be made as couverture.

Professionals use it for dipping, coating, molding and garnishing. When it is tempered well, the extra cocoa butter gives it more shine, a firmer snap when you break it, and a mellow, creamy flavor.

Under European Union rules, a chocolate labeled couverture must contain:

• at least 35% total dry cocoa solids
• within that, at least 31% cocoa butter
• and at least 2.5% dry cocoa solids that are not fat

Reading the percentage

The percentage printed on a bar mixes cocoa butter and cocoa liquor into one number. It does not tell you how much of each is in it. To find out, look at the nutrition label or ask the maker.

When everything else is equal, the bar with more fat has more cocoa butter. That means more flavor and a richer feel in the mouth. It usually costs more too, because cocoa butter is worth more than cocoa liquor.

Two bars from different makers can show the same percentage and still be quite different, in fat, in liquor and in taste. Swapping one for the other can spoil a recipe. Know what is in the chocolate before you choose it.

Tempering

Tempering is what makes couverture shine and snap. What it does to the crystals in cocoa butter, and what badly tempered chocolate looks like, is covered earlier. see chapter 7: Fats and chocolate

An infrared thermometer, which reads only the surface, is useful for tempering. see chapter 3: Thermometers