can unsweetened chocolate be used for tempering? i love daaaark chocolate, 90+% for daily consumption. however, i dont eat sugar, and the darkest sugar free dark chocolate i have found is about 53%, which is totally unacceptable. so i have endeavored to make my own. i have been mixing unsweetened chocolate with the 53% dark chocolate (sweetened with maltitol) and am confident with my precise tempering technique, but have not been able to hold a temper for more than 24 hours. if unsweetened baking chocolate is not recommended, where can i find unsweetened chocolate for molding? please help me!

updated by @darkandbitter: 04/10/15 17:32:02

100% unsweetened (winnowed, ground and often roasted cacao) is referred to as chocolate / cacao / cocoa liquor which may be why your having problems finding it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_liquor

If your still having problems, what you could do is buy pure cacao powder (e.g. http://www.bigtreefarms.com/cacao/ see link at bottom for stockists) and cacao butter from a health food store and combine to reconstitute a liquor. You would have to know the proportion of butter (fat) in the powder to do that, roughly aiming for a 50% butter content by weight.

thanks for your reply!

so, are you saying; dont use the unsweetened baking chocolate?

is the chocolate liquer solid or liquid?

will it solidify if mixed (and tempered properly) with the maltitol sweetened chocolate?

if i am going to use the cocoa powder:

1. dutch process or no?

2. would cosmetic grade 100% cocoa butter work?

You can temper unsweetened chocolate. When you purchase the bars, they're tempered. When blending chocolates, especially adding cocoa powder look for a change in percent cocoa butter of your new blend. This will have a significant affect on the chocolate from processing to eating quality.

It's really up to you, the baking chocolate we usually have here is adulterated in some way.

Solid at normal room temperature.

I'd imagine so but no experience.

1. I don't personally like the process of dutching. It's and aesthetic thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_process_chocolate

2. No, Food grade only! You can use other fats e.g. butter, coconut, etc ... Obviously other fats will effect tempering and taste drastically.

okay, that's what i thought. if unsweetened chocolate is tempered, it makes sense that it should be able to be re-tempered, right? not sure why i was having such a problem. perhaps it was a humidity issue. it rained for two months here in new york during the course of my multiple efforts. i tried again now that it has dried out a bit, and tempered for one hour+. seems to hold a temper, no bloom yet. however, when i tested the tempering chocolate with a spoon (to check if it was tempered and would set) during the process, it did not set. that's why i tempered it for so long. in the end, i did my dipping and molding, cooled in the refrigerator.

chocolate is mysterious and wonderful.