Can you temper store-bought chocolate?

Question

Is it possible and necessary to temper store-bought quality chocolate like Lindt?

Say, for example, you want to use it to make chocolate moulds - would it be possible to melt and temper the chocolate and have the same result as that of couverture chocolate?

R. Singh · Accepted Answer

Yes, you absolutely can (Lindt dark chocolate bars work just fine).

Whether you can temper chocolate is simply a matter of whether there's enough cocoa butter (the fat that is actually crystallizing during the tempering process). You will want to have at least ~30% cocoa butter by mass if you want to temper the chocolate, but even 20% will work.

When you see a chocolate bar that says something like, "70% cocoa," that is the sum of the fat (cocoa butter) and non-fat parts (cocoa solids) of the cacao bean. That 70% might be divided between 30% fat and 40% cacao, for example, which is definitely sufficient for tempering.

If you want to know if a particular bar can be used for tempering, here's a quick test:

Read the label, and see if the primary fat is real cocoa butter
Make sure that the bar is at least 30% fat by mass

Small warning: different chocolates have different tempering curves. This is why dark, milk, and white chocolates generally have slightly different tempering curves. If you have a good, instant-read thermometer, it will help in the process of learning how to temper your chocolate of choice.

rumtscho · Answer

Store-bought chocolate is sold tempered. You don't have to re-temper it.
In a comment, you also ask

but what happens when it is melted?

If you do your chocolate work properly, it won't distemper. That means that you either work with the pure chocolate without going out of the proper temperature range, or you make something with the chocolate (e.g. a ganache) and precisely follow a good method (should be explained in your recipe or textbook). So there is nothing special you have to do.
If you worked with your chocolate in such a way that you distempered it, but without ruining it completely (it has not seized or similar), you can indeed temper it again.

Can you temper store-bought chocolate?

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