Let’s go old school and bring marble into the chocolate tempering equation!
I’ve been brainstorming a series of tea flavored chocolate truffles! First up: earl grey. It’s a sophisticated tea, and I thought the bergamot flavor (flavour?) would go great with dark chocolate. Once I settled on making earl grey tea ganache, I had to decide what method of chocolate tempering I would use this round.
After experimenting with different tempering methods including seeding and sous vide, I wanted to try a more traditional and professional approach!
Have you ever been to a fancy artisan chocolate shop, and watched them pour melted chocolate onto a marble countertop and swirl it around? It’s a method of chocolate tempering called “tabling.”
See this video for details on “how to” table chocolate, but I briefly describe my experience below.
I melted dark belgian chocolate as per usual in a double boiler to ~115F. Then, I poured about 3/4ths of the melted chocolate onto a marble slab, and spread it out in an even layer with an offset spatula. Next, I took a pastry scraper and swirled the chocolate around slowly on the marble until it cooled to 82F.
Finally, I scraped this cooled chocolate back into the original bowl still containing some melted chocolate, and stirred to combine. Ideally, the chocolate ends up at ~88F, the correct “workable” temperature. If a bit under temperature, I warmed the whole lot briefly on the double boiler until it reached 88F. Then, after doing a quick sanity check with some baking parchment, the chocolate was ready to use!
I really enjoy this method of chocolate tempering. It’s very tactile, as you can feel the chocolate crystal structure changing on the marble as you work the melted chocolate atop it. I also found that it tempers chocolate beautifully. The chocolate sets very hard and crisp with a perfect glossy sheen. In my own personal experience, the tempered chocolate that results from tabling is far superior to my results with sous vide.
Additionally, since one works with only completely melted chocolate in this tabling method, there is no concern about errant bits of unmelted chocolate (as happens if one is not careful when using the seeding method). And it requires far less effort and stirring than the seeding method as well, saving one from forearm fatigue.
Any downsides? There are only two that come to mind.
One downside is having to obtain a marble/granite slab in the first place. It requires finding a slab that is “perfectly” smooth to work with (we have granite countertops but the granite has a lot of tiny crevices, which would trap chocolate and/or be less of a clean surface to work on). And obviously, marble is pricey. However, I found that a standard 16″x20″ marble pastry board works well as long as one is not working with too much chocolate at once. The cost of a marble pastry board is expensive, but not exorbitant. I looked at one at Sur La Table which was GORGEOUS, but decided to be frugal and get the no frills one from Cost Plus World Market for $40.
The other downside is having to clean the marble slab before and after chocolate work. Marble is, unsurprisingly, very heavy.
Overall? It’s worth it. I’ve since made 2 other batches of chocolate truffles with the marble tabling method, because I love the results so much.
