Pre-Crystallization – The Most Important Skill to Learn

Tabling is perhaps the most classic way to pre-crystallize chocolate. It's the method most people have seen "in action" and want to try for themselves. My suspicion is that pre-crystallization gets shown this way a lot because it looks a bit more "fun" than the other methods. It's a relatively quick way to pre-crystallize - but it gets tricky once you're working with a larger amount of chocolate, since you need more surface area the more chocolate you have. So how does it work? There are two slightly different approaches, just to make things a little extra complicated, right? No - it's almost the same process, just with one step that sets them apart.

Let's take a look at how it's done!

Start by weighing out as much chocolate as you want to pre-crystallize. For this method, you'll need some kind of metal scraper along with a palette knife, or similar tools.

Melt the chocolate, either in a microwave or over a water bath (French: bain-marie). Be careful not to burn the chocolate - that can happen no matter which method you use. If you're a beginner using a microwave, don't use the highest setting. Start with around 600W, one minute at a time. Another tip is to always use the same amount of chocolate when you're starting out, so you learn what it feels like to work with the chocolate and how long it needs to melt and reach the temperature you're after. Another way to make things harder for yourself is to work with too small an amount of chocolate - the less you have, the faster you'll need to work. Make it easy on yourself! Use 600-800 grams (21-28 oz) of chocolate until you're comfortable with the technique. Don't forget that, in theory, you can reuse the same chocolate as many times as you like - as long as you don't accidentally burn it, of course. So don't be afraid to make mistakes - that's exactly how you learn!

If you're melting white or milk chocolate, it's good to be extra careful. If it gets too hot, you can burn the milk proteins in the chocolate, which will leave you with little "lumps" in it - and that's obviously not what you want.

You can melt dark chocolate up to a temperature of 45-50°C (113-122°F). Milk and white chocolate should be heated to 45°C (113°F). Some manufacturers say white and milk chocolate can be heated up to 50°C (122°F), but to stay on the safe side and avoid ruining the chocolate, stick to 45°C (113°F).

Once you've melted the chocolate to these temperatures, its crystal structure will have broken down into a disordered, liquid form. What you need to do now is create those crystals again - that's what pre-crystallization actually is.

This is where we reach the fork in the road - the point where you can choose between two different approaches to pre-crystallization. The first involves pouring all the chocolate onto your countertop, which needs to be made of stone or a similar material. Never do this on a laminate or wooden countertop, and a steel counter isn't recommended either. Once the chocolate is on the countertop, use a palette knife to spread it out, then the metal scraper to gather it back into a pile. Repeat this step until the chocolate reaches the desired temperature.

Two things happen at this stage:

• The chocolate and cocoa butter drop in temperature, and the fats in the cocoa butter become supercooled. This is what lets us create the crystals we're after in the cocoa butter.
• The shearing forces (the movement) created in the chocolate and cocoa butter help form crystals too. Unfortunately, this also creates crystals we don't want - which is why we need to raise the temperature afterward, to melt those away and keep only the type V crystals.

If you pour out all the chocolate, scrape it into a bowl and warm it to the right temperature, very carefully - in your microwave, for example. If it gets too warm, the chocolate won't crystallize perfectly.

And the second approach? You pour two-thirds of the chocolate onto the work surface and leave the rest in your bowl. Once the chocolate on the counter reaches the right temperature, pour it back into the bowl - the chocolate already in the bowl will gently warm the chocolate from the counter and melt away the crystals you don't want.

If you're warming the chocolate in a microwave, be very careful - it can heat up too much surprisingly fast. Warm it for just a few seconds at a time, stir thoroughly, and check the temperature. Repeat until you reach the right working temperature.

So what temperatures are we actually talking about? These apply to, and usually work for, most types of chocolate:

If you're wondering why white and milk chocolate are cooled and heated to lower temperatures, it's because the milk fat in the chocolate affects the cocoa butter - the crystals melt at lower temperatures, and so they also crystallize at a lower temperature. We'll go into this in more detail in a later class.

Whichever method you use, make sure to stir thoroughly in the container holding your "finished" chocolate, so the type V crystals you've created in the cocoa butter spread throughout the whole batch - that's what makes for a good crystallization!

Once you've warmed the chocolate, it's ready to use. Fill your bonbon molds, make your decorations, dip cut bonbons in it - or whatever else you're making!

The first time you pre-crystallize chocolate, or whenever you're feeling unsure, test the chocolate to check it's been handled correctly. Dip a small piece of baking paper in it and wait to see how it crystallizes. If you get a matte surface after about a minute, with no streaks, you've done it right. Milk and white chocolate take longer to crystallize because of the milk fat they contain.