After due warning, the second plague came to Egypt. Aaron stretched his hand out over the waters of Egypt, and frogs swarmed forth. They covered every inch of land, and entered the houses and bedrooms!
Wherever an Egyptian turned, whatever he touched, he found there the slimy bodies of frogs, the croaking of which filled the air.
For our chocolate frogs, we used simple plastic frog molds and filled them with dark chocolate that we tempered. The tempering of chocolate is an extra step that helps chocolate stay shiny and gives it its distinctive snap.
How to temper dark chocolate:
Tempering chocolate is essential if you plan on working with chocolate and molding it, without tempering your melted and hardened chocolate will bloom, allow moisture in and actually not taste as good. Tempered chocolate has a shine and a snap when broken.
I use the seeding method though there are a whole bunch of methods out there, use the one that works for you, when in doubt I usually take the longer method, though there are more steps involved, the slow approach works best for me.
- Only temper the amount of chocolate you plan on using since you will need to temper chocolate again once it hardens. Finely chop your chocolate. Divide the chocolate into ¾ and ¼, set aside the ¼ amount.
- Place ¾ of the chocolate in a large bowl that fits over a pot that has about an inch of simmering water in it, make sure that the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.
- Melt the chocolate very slowly over the barely simmering water, stir the chocolate constantly until it reaches 48℃ (118℉). Take the bowl off the pot of steaming water, and wipe off any condensation on the bottom of the bowl.
- Stir in the reserved ¼ chocolate, and keep stirring until you reach 27℃ (80℉). Measure the temperature frequently, cleaning off the end of the thermometer between each use.
- Now place the bowl back onto the just simmering water and bring the temperature of the chocolate up to 32℃ (90℉).
- Now you are ready to use your tempered chocolate.
Note: even though you have hit all the right temperatures, there are times when tempering doesn’t work, don’t let it put you off, and do not ditch the chocolate, simply wipe down and start again.
