iI have not made any chocolate candy ever. I want to make truffles with a chocolate shell in your recipe it says to temper the chocolate. could you tell me what this means? Thank you candy Tempering must be done if you want to be sure you will end up with a chocolate finish that is hard and shiny. When you melt chocolate, the fat molecules separate. In order to be realigned, tempering is recommended or else you may end up with a dull and streaky finish. There are several methods of tempering. One is to melt the chocolate (semi-sweet) to about 115 degrees and remove from the heat and (seed) add chopped chocolate to the bowl to bring down the temperature to about 87 - 88 degrees. You may need to place the bowl back onto a double boiler to melt the chocolate in, but do not leave it on the heat more than 5-10 seconds, all the while, stirring. You will need to test the chocolate to see if it is in temper by sticking a paring knife or the corner of a plastic bowl scraper (for example) into the chocolate. Pull it out and allow to sit for about 5-8 minutes to see if it begins to harden and remain shiny. If it does not harden, it may be too warm still. You may place the bowl in the frig briefly or seed in more unmelted chocolate to cool it down. It is a lot of back and forth sometimes! It is really fun once you get the hang of it and very rewarding. Practice. Elisabeth

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