Tempering (chocolate or eggs)

00:50 Mar 7, 2007 

thanks you!

21:31 Mar 5, 2007 

Tempering chocolate (Or eggs) is exactly what elysee found (thank you). That is, it is combining cold and hot liquids in such a manner, as to stabilize them. One doesn't want scrambled eggs, when one is making a souflee, so one mixes a bit of the warm liquid into the cold eggs, to "warm them" then recombines the two. This is tempering eggs.

With chocolate, though the same term is use, the concept is a bit more difficult, since you are brining your chocolate up to a certain temp, and lowering it slowly, to get stable crystals.

English has borrowed so many cooking terms, i didn't want to just "assume" that "to temper" in French, would be the same.

Thanks for the help. i'll select points after the 12 hours recomended. :-)

20:58 Mar 5, 2007 

It rather looks as if there are different meanings, according to whether it is chocolate, eggs, or something else again. It would probably be helpful if you posted a little more of your context showing how the terms are being used...