How To Temper With Cocoa Butter

How to temper chocolate with cocoa butter using an easy, cost-effective, fuss-free and foolproof homemade Cocoa Butter Silk or Mycryo powdered cocoa butter.

Inspiration

Having spent my early years smothered in cocoa butter (or coconut oil) at the hands of my grandma, I am no stranger to the stuff. Now that I use cocoa butter to temper my chocolate, I feel somehow my life has come full circle. 🙂

I held on to the coca butter and coconut oil beauty regimen from my childhood. These days I also use it to beautify and temper my chocolate in the form of Mycryo powder or Cocoa Butter Silk. If you haven't been using cocoa butter to seed your chocolate, let me attempt to change your chocolate tempering ways!

Cocoa Butter Silk

I first heard about cocoa butter silk in a class I took with Ramon Morato a few years back. Explained then, the process involved buying a pricey piece of equipment. More recently, I saw a post on Nicholas Botimisy's Instagram feed, showing how he uses cocoa butter silk, but that too required another pricey piece of equipment.

Then the universe led me to Chocolate Alchemy IG feed, who sells cocoa butter silk, but I really did not want to pay for shipment and customs from the U.S. It wasn't meant to be, however, as it turned out they do not ship silk in the summer, for obvious reasons.

Then jackpot! Another post on their feed provided a glimpse into making your own silk at home, without breaking the bank!

Tempering with Mycryo Cocoa Butter

I am no stranger to tempering with cocoa butter. I talked a little about using Mycryo in this post a few years back. Mycryo is cocoa butter in powdered form. It was developed by Cacao Barry for tempering chocolate, but can also be used in a number of savoury applications.

It's rather simple to do:

• melt and heat chocolate to 40-45C/104-113F
• allow to cool to 35C/95F for dark, or 30C/86F for white/milk/coloured
• add 1% Mycryo and mix well
• use when the chocolate reaches working temperature - 31-32C/ 87.8-89.6F for dark and 29-30C/84.2-86F for others

My first few attempts at this method in the early days yielded mixed results. It successfully tempered the chocolate, but the texture was smoother in some batches than others. After a bit of troubleshooting, I determined that the chocolate wasn't warm enough, when I added the cocoa butter, to completely melt the chocolate. I've been happy with the results since.

How To Make Cocoa Butter Silk

As mentioned in the opening, I learned this technique for making my own cocoa butter silk from the Chocolate Alchemist. Already a long time sous vide enthusiast for both sweet and savoury applications, I had to give this a try! It's super easy to make cocoa butter silk at home, with the help of an immersion cooker. It takes about 24 hours, but that is all hands-off time.

You will need:

• cocoa butter - I experimented with both raw and refined (I talk a bit about each here)
• a lidded jar or vacuum bag suitable for sous vide
• a heavy-duty pot or polycarbonate container for your water bath
• a sous vide immersion circulator or water oven
• an airtight rigid container for storing your silk

Once you have set up your water bath and heated the water to temperature, 33.6ºC/92.5ºF, place the cocoa butter in a jar or bag (you'll need to weigh it down) and cook for up to 24 hours.

I checked mine at 12 hours and while the deodorized cocoa butter pellets appeared silky smooth after a quick stir, the raw cocoa butter required the full 24 hours. It never achieved the same degree of smoothness as the pellet batch, but when tested, it tempered my chocolate beautifully.

Tempering with Cocoa Butter Silk

When ready, the silk will resemble mayonnaise or smooth peanut butter, in texture, not the clear, runny liquid that is produced by simply melting cocoa butter.

You can use it straight away or transfer to a container and allow it to set/harden. When you're ready to temper your chocolate, follow these simple steps:

If using fresh silk:

• melt your chocolate to 33.6C/92.5F and seed your chocolate with 1% cocoa butter silk by weight
• test your temper and you are ready to use the chocolate to shell, make bars etc.

If using set silk:

• finely grate or chop the cocoa butter silk and scale - you will need 1% by weight
• heat your chocolate to 34.4C/94F, seed the chocolate with the scaled cocoa butter silk and allow the temperature to drop to 33.6C/92.5F
• Test the temper and you are ready to use your chocolate to shell, make bars etc.

Mycryo or Cocoa Butter Silk

Both methods of tempering with cocoa butter - Mycryo and Cocoa Butter Silk - have worked great for me, but my preference to date is definitely cocoa butter silk.

I like the ease of it - all chocolates are seeded at the same temp. I like adding yet another to the list of ways I use my sous vide. I like the consistent results I have had to date, especially for making chocolate at home without fancy equipment. And using cocoa butter, the main ingredient in chocolate, to temper chocolate just makes sense!

If you are still uncertain, check out Chocolate Alchemy site - they offer a great resource for chocolate in general.

Have you made or used cocoa butter silk? Would love to hear about your experience with it. Leave me a note in the comments below.