Tempered chocolate

[jmcgrath]

The mechanism for tempering chocolate is well known, as is the taste preference for the form V crystalline polymorph of cocoa butter. But, what is special about that polymorph when compared to the other five?

Jim

[Harold McGee]

It’s not so much the taste of that crystalline form of cocoa fat as its texture, and its stability. Most of the other crystal forms are less compact and stable, don’t form as well integrated a network of interconnected crystals, and therefore have a soft, greasy quality rather than a snappy one. The fat molecules themselves have no flavor.