First of all you’ll need a double boiler. If you don’t have one, a bowl over a pot of some shallow simmering water will work fine. You’re also going to have to use a thermometer, especially one that’s instant-read, easy to read, and works in the low temperature ranges. Once you have your equipment, all you need to do is get melting!
Ingredients:
~18 oz. good quality gluten-free chocolate, not chocolate chips, dark and/or semi-sweet
1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. peppermint extract
Directions:
1. Line several cookie sheets with wax paper, parchment paper, or silicone mats. Fill small pot with about an inch of water and bring to simmer. Cover with bowl large enough to fully cover the top of the pot. Place all except about an ounce of chocolate in the bowl and set rest aside for later. Keep stirring chocolate with rubber spatula to melt evenly.
2. Let chocolate come up to 118°F, then remove bowl from heat, being careful not to let any steam get into the bowl. Water will make melted chocolate seize solid and ruin the batch.
3. Drop in reserved solid chocolate one piece at a time, stirring it in until each piece is melted. Continue stirring until temperature drops to 81°. Time required may depending on chocolate used, room temperature & humidity, etc.
4. Place bowl back over simmering pot of water, add peppermint extract, and stir constantly until temperature reaches 88-90°. Do not let temperature go over 92°.
5. Remove bowl from heat, and begin dipping cookies. Use fingers to dip the top side into the chocolate first, then maneuver cookie onto a fork to dip the bottom side. Let excess drip off around the fork, then place dipped cookie onto lined cookie sheet to cool. Stir and check temperature of chocolate occasionally, and reheat to about 90° if it drops below 88°.
6. Once cookies have cooled, enjoy with a glass of milk or cup of coffee.
So despite the method being very precise, it’s actually really simple. It just requires the right tools and a bit of patience. And once you know how to temper, you can add all sorts of different flavorings and dip all kinds of different things. You could even drizzle some tempered chocolate directly onto your cookie sheet and make your very own chocolate hearts for Valentine’s or chocolate spider webs for Halloween or chocolate stars for watching a meteor shower!
But why temper chocolate? Why not just melt it down, throw the cookies in, and shove the tray in the fridge so the coating gets hard? Why can’t we use chocolate chips? Why, why, why? Well the short version is that chocolate is actually cocoa suspended in cocoa butter, which actually has a crystalline structure. There are six different forms the crystals can take, and tempering will get us the most of the Form V crystals that can be built while using melted chocolate. Form V results in a smooth texture that snaps when the chocolate is broken. Other forms sometimes produce grainy texture, separation of the cocoa solids from the cocoa butter (bloom), or a softer texture that isn’t ideal for chocolate coatings. Chocolate chips have additional ingredients like emulsifiers added that keep them from melting at higher temperatures like when baking chocolate chip cookies, which means they can’t be tempered. And I don’t know about you, but biting into a cold chocolate-dipped strawberry makes my teeth hurt like biting into ice cream, and I don’t want the chocolate melting or sweating when I take it out of the fridge. All this means I’m glad I know how to temper chocolate.
For more information on tempering, check out this post from SeriousEats.com, and this one from David Lebovitz! Ready to try tempering chocolate yourself? Remember, the most important thing is patience!
I hope you enjoy your awesome gluten-free knockoff chocolate mint cookies. Leave your thoughts in a comment below, or get in touch with me directly by filling out the form on the contact page.
Like me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/TheDeglutenizer
Follow me on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/TheDeglutenizer
Follow me on tumblr!
http://thedeglutenizer.tumblr.com
Follow me on Pinterest!
http://www.pinterest.com/thedeglutenizer/