The Heating Pad Hack For Chocolate Tempered To Perfection

Many bakers consider tempering chocolate the final touch required to make any chocolate-dipped dessert perfect. This is because tempered chocolate has that beautiful, shiny appearance, makes a lovely snapping noise when broken, and doesn't melt in your hand. However, if you've ever tempered chocolate before, you know that the process can be finicky and downright stressful. Luckily, there is one common household item that can help make the process easier. As confectionist Erik Landegren said in an interview with Food & Wine, that item is a simple heating pad.

While heating pads are typically reserved for muscle aches and back pain, what makes them useful with chocolate is that they can be set at a certain temperature and then hold that temperature for a long period. This function is perfect for the final step of tempering chocolate, which requires maintaining the melted chocolate at a specific temperature – 90 degrees Fahrenheit for dark chocolate and 88 degrees Fahrenheit for milk or white chocolate — so that you can work with it before it hardens. 

A heating pad is the perfect tool for the job, because you can simply heat it up and then set your bowl on top of it to stay warm. Traditionally, to keep the chocolate at a working temperature, bakers have two choices: take the bowl on and off a double boiler or in and out of the microwave — both of which tend to be more complicated and stressful than the heating pad. 

The first thing you should check before whipping out the old heating pad to help you temper chocolate is whether or not your heating pad is up to the task. Because holding an exact temperature is the key to tempering chocolate, it is important that the heating pad you use can be set to a specific temperature and hold it accurately. Seeing as there is only a difference of two degrees between holding milk chocolate and dark chocolate correctly, just setting a heating pad to low, medium, or high won't do the trick. You'll need a pad with a more detailed temperature gauge.

Also, you will have to check if your heating pad has a low enough range to be used with the chocolate. For some heating pads sold today, the lowest temperature setting is higher than what you need for tempering. To keep the chocolate at the perfect temperature, you will want to set your heating pad somewhere between 90 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit, which also happens to be the temperature you would want to maintain in your bowl of water if you chose the double boiler tempering method. 

There are often three steps in tempering chocolate, and when using a heating pad, the first two steps will remain the same. For the first step, place your chocolate in a glass bowl and melt it perfectly without burning it using either the microwave or a double boiler. This step is called the first melt, and the type of chocolate you are using will melt at a different temperature. Dark chocolate should melt completely at 122 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas milk and white chocolate will melt at a lower temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once the first melt is complete, you need to add in more chocolate and cool the mixture to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (88 degrees for milk or white chocolate). Once that has been achieved, it's time to whip out the heating pad. 

Because tempered chocolate hardens quickly, the job of the heating pad is to keep the chocolate at a temperature where it will stay melted and workable without burning. Setting your heating pad to 90 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit should do the trick, but you will need to continue to check the temperature of the chocolate with a thermometer and stir the chocolate while working to make sure it doesn't get too hot or too cold.