Settling into our new spacious kitchen was very nice. But the fact that we were now to work on more chocolate worried some. I have to admit even I was a little worried, I still hadn't quite mastered this tempering thing just yet. Although thanks to my manager at Jacques Torres who insisted that I try tempering chocolate with out a thermometer. You want me to do what!? The thought of not using a thermometer made no sense to me in my head I knew that there were very specific numbers that we had to hit as we heated and cooled the chocolate how could I possibly do that with no thermometer? But as Melissa explained that it was all about learning
the look and feel of chocolate when its tempered I thought OK, maybe I can do this. So when Chef Jurgen said that we were to be doing out final Chocolate showpiece the next day I decided to put my thermometer back in my tool kit and see if I could do this relying only on my senses. And to my excitement batch after batch came out perfectly tempered with no sign of a thermometer in sight. And by class end I was very happy with my Chocolate show piece.
I was nervous yet excited to bring my chocolate showpiece into Jacques Torres chocolate to show everyone, yet their opinion and knowledge of chocolate was greatly respected. Melissa was overjoyed that I didn't use a thermometer like she suggested. I think she was even more amused by how excited I was about it. An then there was Chef Torres himself. Part of me didn't want to show him the showpiece, after all he is the master. Chef was very impressed and said it was beautiful and he couldn't do better. He even asked me how I made some elements of it! Hearing that from him meant so much to me, truly a proud moment.
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