What chocolate making actually involves

A typical session is an hour or two at the counter. You chop a block or pour out discs of chocolate, melt it gently, then walk it through a temperature curve while stirring, checking with a thermometer every minute or so. When it is in temper you have a working window of 15 to 30 minutes to fill molds, dip, or spread, keeping it warm as you go. Bars set in about 20 minutes in a cool room and release from the mold on their own when the temper was right. Truffles and fillings are made separately from cream and chocolate (ganache) and need an overnight rest or a few hours chilling.

A cook in an apron lifts a white spatula of melted chocolate over a glass bowl — Melted chocolate coming off the spatula over a glass bowl

Four directions to take it

Bars and barkTempered chocolate poured into bar molds or spread thin. This is where everyone starts, and it teaches the core skill.

Start here

Temper one pound of dark chocolate by the seed method this week, pour two bars, and spread what is left thin on parchment as bark.

King Arthur Baking: How to Temper Chocolate

Truffles and ganacheChocolate and cream rolled into balls and finished in cocoa or a dip of tempered chocolate. Forgiving and quick to please a crowd.

Start here

Make a batch of ganache truffles: pour hot cream over chopped chocolate, chill it, scoop and roll it, then dust the balls in cocoa.

King Arthur Baking: Chocolate Truffles

Molded bonbonsThin tempered shells in a hard mold, filled with ganache or caramel and capped. The most precise work, so save it for once your bars release cleanly.

Start here

Once your bars come out of the mold glossy every time, shell a tray of bonbons: fill the cavities with tempered chocolate, turn the mold over to drain, scrape it clean, then fill with soft ganache and seal with a thin cap.

Bean-to-bar chocolateRoasting raw cacao beans in the oven, cracking them with a rolling pin and blowing off the husks with a hair dryer, then grinding the nibs with sugar for one to three days in a stone grinder until smooth. You control the bean, roast and sweetness.

Start here

Read a full bean-to-bar guide start to finish, then roast one pound of beans, crack and winnow them, and run the nibs with sugar in a stone grinder.

Chocolate Alchemy: How to Make Chocolate

A full bean-to-bar guide

Chocolate Alchemy: How to Make Chocolate Free, detailed bean-to-bar guide: roasting profiles, winnowing, grinder refining times and recipe ratios.

Your first afternoon of chocolate

The tested guide and recipe

What you can make in your first month

Tempered dark bars

Two or three bars that pop out of the mold glossy and snap cleanly, the best proof your tempering works.

Thin chocolate bark

The tempered leftovers spread on parchment and broken into shards, so nothing goes to waste while you practice.

Cocoa-dusted truffles

Soft ganache rolled into balls and coated in cocoa, which needs no tempering at all.

Chocolate discs

Spoonfuls of tempered chocolate spread into small rounds on a sheet, topped with a pinch of salt, a quick way to test a batch.

Tempering temperatures by chocolate type

Dark chocolate

Melt to 113 to 122°F (45 to 50°C), seed or cool it down, and work at 88 to 90°F (31 to 32°C).

Milk chocolate

Melt to 104 to 113°F (40 to 45°C), and work at 84 to 86°F (29 to 30°C).

White chocolate

Melt to 104 to 110°F (40 to 43°C) and no hotter, since it scorches easily, then work at 82 to 84°F (28 to 29°C).

Brands differ by a degree or two: when the bag prints its own temperature curve, follow that instead.
If the chocolate goes above its working temperature while you work, it loses temper. Cool it again with more seed, rather than just using it.
Only real chocolate with cocoa butter tempers. Candy melts and compound coatings contain other fats; they set without tempering but never snap or shine the same way.

A large glossy dark chocolate slab scored into squares on a sheet tray

The skills that matter early

Choose, measure, keep it dry, mold, emulsify

Choosing chocolate

Buy couverture, sold as discs or callets for professionals, with cocoa butter as the only fat. A 55 to 70% dark is the easiest to temper. Skip chocolate chips, which contain stabilizers and temper poorly.

Reading a thermometer

You are working to one or two degrees. Pick a digital probe that reads in whole degrees from 80 to 130°F and settles within a few seconds.

Keeping water out

A few drops of water or steam make melted chocolate seize into a stiff, grainy paste. Dry every bowl, spatula and mold completely, keep the water bath at a bare simmer, and never cover melting chocolate with a lid.

Molding cleanly

Fill generously, tap out air bubbles, scrape the top flat in one pass, and keep the scraped excess for the next batch.

Making ganache

Hot cream poured over chopped chocolate, left a minute, then stirred from the center out until glossy. Too much stirring while hot or cream that is too hot can make it split.

What trips beginners up

Expect a batch or two of streaky, dull bars. That gray haze (fat bloom) means the temper was off; melt the bars and try again, since nothing is wasted.
Bars that stick in the mold usually mean untempered chocolate or a mold that was too cold or too warm. Tempered chocolate shrinks and releases on its own.
Small batches are harder: Less than about a pound cools too quickly to hold at working temperature. Melt more than you need and save the rest.
Overheating in the microwave burns chocolate from the center out. Use short bursts and stir even when it still looks solid.
Do not store finished chocolate in the fridge long term. Damp and cold cause white sugar bloom; keep it wrapped in a cool, dark cupboard around 60 to 68°F.

Cupped hands full of cacao beans held over a pile of beans

Safety

Dogs, steam, allergens, roasting and the grinder

Chocolate and cacao are toxic to dogs (and cats). Dark chocolate, cocoa powder, cacao nibs and husks are the most dangerous. Keep bowls, scraps and finished bars out of reach, and call your vet or a pet poison hotline right away if a dog eats some.
Steam and simmering water burn. Use a bowl that sits snugly on the pan and lift it out with an oven mitt.
Label gifts for allergens: Milk, nuts, soy (lecithin) and gluten in fillings or toppings.
Bean-to-bar roasting: Oven heat runs to 300 to 400°F and beans can smoke or scorch. Use the range hood or open a window, stay in the kitchen while they roast, and let trays cool before handling.
Treat raw cacao beans like raw food: They are fermented and dried outdoors, and roasting is the step that makes them safe. Wash your hands and surfaces after handling them, and do not snack on unroasted beans.
Winnowing throws up fine husk dust. Do it outdoors or in a garage, not over the kitchen counter.
Stone grinders run for one to three days. Read and follow your machine's manual on run times, loads and rest periods, keep it on a stable counter away from the edge, keep long hair and spatulas away from the turning stones, and do not leave a running machine unattended for long or overnight unless its manual says so. Never add water to it, and warm the bowl no hotter than the manual allows (many say about 150°F).

Where to keep learning

The tempering guide and truffle recipe linked in the steps above cover your first month.
A professional baking hotline will talk you through a batch that seized, split or bloomed.
For bean-to-bar, a complete free guide from a long-running home craft supplier explains roasting profiles, refining times and recipe ratios.

Free help when a batch goes wrong

King Arthur Baking: Baker's Hotline Free phone and chat help from professional bakers when a batch goes wrong.

How this kit is built

The base kit is cheap: good chocolate, a fast thermometer, a heatproof bowl and a hard bar mold are all you need to temper. The cocoa, acetate sheets and scale make the first recipes easier, and the bonbon mold and dipping tools are for later. The bean-to-bar add-on is where the money goes: a stone grinder is the one big purchase, and raw beans, cocoa butter and sugar are the ingredients it turns into chocolate. Couverture is a consumable, so expect to rebuy two pounds every few batches.

Flat lay of decorated bonbons and cocoa-dusted truffles on white marble — Molded bonbons and cocoa-dusted truffles

Stock the chocolate bench

Every line below is something you buy online. Compare the options and set your tiers in the kit. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out of the kit. The bean-to-bar lines stay out until you switch that add-on on.

Dark couverture chocolate callets

Essential · Ingredients

Couverture has a high cocoa butter content and no other fats, so it tempers, flows thinly into molds and sets with a real snap.

budget

Jacques Torres Chocolate 60% Dark Chocolate Baking Discs - 2 Pounds

4.7(166)

$34.00

Chocolate Making

What chocolate making actually involves

Four directions to take it

Your first afternoon of chocolate

Tempering temperatures by chocolate type

The skills that matter early

What trips beginners up

Safety

Where to keep learning

How this kit is built

Stock the chocolate bench

Dark couverture chocolate callets

Digital instant-read thermometer

Heatproof glass mixing bowl

Polycarbonate chocolate bar mold

Wide offset spatula

Dutch-process cocoa powder

Acetate sheets for chocolate

Digital kitchen scale

Cacao beans for roasting

Stone melanger chocolate grinder

Food-grade cocoa butter

Organic cane sugar

Polycarbonate half-sphere bonbon mold

Chocolate dipping fork set