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Ever opened a chocolate bar that’s been sitting in your cupboard for a few months and found a pale, chalky confection in place of what was once a smooth, velvety, espresso-toned beauty? That piece of chocolate has lost its temper. (No, for real.)Tempering is the careful process of crystallizing the cocoa fat in chocolate. Do it right, and you’ll wind up with chocolate that’s hard, glossy, moldable, aromatic, and snappy, and will melt in your mouth. But here’s where things get tricky: cocoa fat can crystallize in six different ways, and only one form of crystals creates chocolate with all of the qualities that make it so freaking fantastic. So the goal is to melt away the five forms of crystals that interfere with the results we are after, leaving only the good guys. We achieve this through three steps: First, we heat the chocolate, melting all of the crystals. Next, we cool the molten chocolate to a specific temperature to encourage crystals to begin growing in the cocoa. “Seeding” the chocolate with solid pieces of already tempered chocolate helps that process along by providing a starting pattern for the right kind of crystals to begin forming. Finally, we heat the chocolate slightly to a “working temperature”—enough to melt all but the desirable form of crystals. If all goes according to plan, we can then use that chocolate to create cute little candies or coat fruit in a glossy coat of decadent goodness.But—no way around it—when it comes to tempering, plans can go awry. No matter what technology you use, this process requires attention to detail, along with vigilance, patience, and the fortitude to fail a few times before achieving awesome results. (Insert control-your-temper joke here.) The good news is that when it goes wrong, you can just remelt that chocolate and try, try again. And there’s more good news: If you’ve got <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/joule">Joule</a>, your chances of achieving tempering success go way up. Our little sous vide tool will help you control the temperature with otherworldly precision, making it simpler than ever to get pro-level chocolate at home. Ready to get melty? Just one final note before we do this thing: The exact temperatures for tempering vary slightly with the composition of chocolate. We used <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Valrhona-Chocolate-Jivara-40-Feves/dp/B00I5UZG4C/ref=pd_sbs_328_19?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00I5UZG4C&pd_rd_r=77C4STS2X9CX50X01WQN&pd_rd_w=weZdw&pd_rd_wg=5F8wW&psc=1&refRID=77C4STS2X9CX50X01WQN?tag=delvkitc-20">Valrhona chocolate</a> for all our trials—if you opt for something else, the ideal temperatures might be slightly different, and if flawless tempering is your goal, you should find out what temperatures the manufacturer recommends. But hey, we’re making chocolate here—experimenting will be pretty delicious. And once you get it down, you can bid adieu to chalky, grey candy and say hello to smooth, silky treats, homemade by you.