The EZtemper is the most helpful tool on the market for chocolate makers and chocolatiers. It was designed by my friend Dr. Kerry Beal (aka The Chocolate Doctor). She's a real-life doctor (in fact, I had an appointment with her before I even new about her 'other' life as a chocolate expert!), as well an amazing chocolatier and all-around chocolate guru. She is Toronto-based, and every summer makes the 7-hour drive up to Manitoulin Island to work in our hospital and medical centres. That is how I came to know her, and was certainly surprised when I saw her demonstrating chocolate truffle making at the Toronto Luxury Chocolate Show several years back! Since then, we have a visit each summer when Kerry is on the Island, and she has taught me all sorts of great chocolatier tricks and techniques. And she introduced me to the EZtemper, for which I will be forever grateful.
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| This is Kerry, the Chocolate Doctor! |
Sometimes I have to temper very small bowls of chocolate, just to do a little decoration on the top of my confections. The EZtemper makes this very quick and simple. Other times, I am tempering large bowls of chocolate (2,000+ grams) and the EZtemper also instantly tempers the chocolate, and lets me re-temper the chocolate quickly when it begin to thicken too much to continue working, without the tedious method of heating and cooling over ice or marble slab.
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| This is a very small batch I might occasionally work with - just enough chocolate to make a squiggle on top of the confections. Can you imagine tempering this amount of chocolate by hand?!? |
For bean-to-bar chocolate makers, this is great (unless you are a two-ingredient/no-cocoa-butter added chocolate maker). It gets your small batches tempered quickly and you can move on faster to the packaging stage.
How does the EZtemper work?For those who understand that cocoa butter crystals are basically science, the EZtemper keeps little containers of cocoa butter in a constant state of 'silk', where it is not liquid nor solid. In fact, it looks like softened butter when it is pulled out of the EZtemper. If you have ever tried to do this over the stove or in the microwave, silk is not easy to make. It is possible, but it would take you an hour to get some ready.
With the EZtemper, you simply take your silk out of the machine, add a dash of cocoa butter (1% of your batch size, to be exact), and stir it in to your chocolate, which just needs to be melted to 33.5ºC or a little less. Bam! Your chocolate is instantly tempered! You still need to do a little test to be sure your thermometer was not off, or your measurement was good, but for me, the chocolate is perfectly tempered nearly every time.
You can also do this with ganaches and meltaways - the batch just needs to be a bit cooler (around 25ºC or so) when adding the silk.
What does the EZtemper cost?
The machine is about $1,000 US, which to me, is worth every penny. It has saved me so much time this last year, and really increased my level of production. Also, it is so easy to use that my summer student was able to learn to temper chocolate perfectly in just her first few days. And I find now, that I can't live without the EZtemper. I can still hand-temper chocolate, but why would I need to waste all that extra time when I have this incredible tool on my counter waiting to be used?
Where can I buy the EZtemper and learn more about it?
Visit www.eztemper.com for more information or follow on Instagram at @EZtemper.
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| This is me, in a very fun apron, with my beloved EZtemper. Note: I was not compensated or paid in any way to write this post. I realize it reads like an advertisement, but that is just my pure excitement over this incredible chocolate-makers tool. |
