Tempering chocolate without power - am I a true chocolatier now?

Yesterday, we experienced a power outage on Manitoulin Island.  I have come to realize that this is a normal occurrence here on the Island. In fact, I have become so used to the outages now, that whenever the wind picks up, I automatically fill the kettle, boil water and fill a thermos, just in case I may be without power (I will not be without coffee or tea). And although the decision has been made to buy a generator, I have not yet done so.

And so when the power went out yesterday - rather unexpectedly I might add - I was desperate to finish off the batch of 250 chocolate TOFFLEs that I had been working on.  The only thing I had left to do was to add the little squiggle of chocolate on the top of each TOFFLE and then package them.

And so what did I do to melt and temper the chocolate? Well, it went something like this:

1.Without a kettle full of hot water, I thought about what I could do to melt the chocolate. I realized that I had just taken some soup off the stove and the soup was still hot.

2. Pouring the small amount of chocolate into a stainless steel bowl and then pouring some soup into another bowl, I used the bowl of soup as a double boiler!  The white chocolate mixture melted  quickly (don't worry, I was careful not to get any soup into the chocolate).


3. I could not get the temperature of the chocolate up to 110 degrees F in order to temper it, so I then found a small chocolate fondue maker.  Although this usually would burn the chocolate if left to sit, I made sure that I constantly stirred until it reached 110 degrees.

4. I cooled the chocolate over an ice bath to 78 degrees F (the power was not out for long by this point, so my freezer had not yet had the chance to melt the ice).

5. I reheated the chocolate to 82 degrees over the soup again. 

6. Voila! I had tempered chocolate and was able to add the squiggle onto my chocolate TOFFLEs! I celebrated by eating the bowl of warm soup.

I feel like this MUST make me a true chocolatier now....right?