Tempering Chocolate In Your Microwave? Use This Technique

Tempering chocolate is a fussy but necessary step in working with chocolate to craft delicious treats like chocolate-dipped strawberries and other confections. Most chefs would—wisely!—advise you to avoid using the microwave to temper it, but you can do so using this simple technique.

Courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen and the Senior Editor of Cook’s Illustrated, Dan Souza, we have this workable compromise between fussing with a double-boiler and a candy thermometer and gross scorched chocolate:

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Not only do we learn exactly what goes into tempering chocolate and how it works, but the microwave technique is a very clever one that avoids the biggest pitfall of taking shortcuts when tempering chocolate: yucky, clumpy, scorched chocolate.