The first thing you'll need to make beautiful artisan chocolates is a selection of polycarbonate chocolate moulds.

These create the professional shine and finish that you simply can't achieve with silicone moulds. They also release more cleanly and are much more durable.

They come in a huge range of shapes and sizes. Here are a few of the styles you may have seen at Ground Up Cookery School, Devon, UK:

You can't use ordinary food colouring when colouring chocolates, it will cause the chocolate to seize and ruin the finish. Instead, we use coloured cocoa butter, which gives chocolates their beautiful professional finish. These come in a wide range of colours. Here are a few that you may have seen at Ground Up Cookery School:

They also come in green, orange, purple, red and yellow allowing you to create a huge range of stunning designs.

Whilst you can use the coloured cocoa to make your own transfer sheets, we do buy ours in, the ones we get come from a specialist supplier, but these are similar.

The beautiful edible glitter paint adds a stunning touch to the chocolates, but can also be used for biscuit and cake decorating.

Best Chocolate for Making Artisan Chocolates

Using the right chocolate makes a huge difference when making artisan chocolates. We recommend using couverture chocolate, which contains a higher cocoa butter content and gives a smoother finish and better tempering results.

You can use:

• Dark chocolate
• Milk chocolate
• White chocolate
  

We often use a combination to create different flavours and finishes.

Here are some of the chocolates similar to those we use at Ground Up Cookery School:

Thermometers for Chocolate Tempering

Whilst it is possible to temper chocolate without a thermometer, using one makes the process far easier and more consistent, particularly for beginners.

A digital thermometer is ideal, allowing you to accurately monitor temperatures during the tempering process. Any probe thermometer will do but you need to ensure it is one with a range of at least -10 to 110°C.

 

 

 

 

 

What Are The Chocolate Tempering Temperatures

Typical chocolate tempering temperatures:

• Dark Chocolate: 31–32°C
• Milk Chocolate: 29–30°C
• White Chocolate: 28–29°C

Chocolate Making Equipment for Beginners

If you're just starting out, you don't need to buy everything at once. We recommend beginning with:

• One polycarbonate chocolate mould
• One or two coloured cocoa butters
• Good quality couverture chocolate
• A digital thermometer

These simple items will allow you to create beautiful artisan chocolates at home and develop your skills over time.

As you become more confident, you can expand your collection with additional moulds, colours and decorative finishes.

Want to Learn in Person?

If you'd like to learn how to temper chocolate, use coloured cocoa butter and create beautiful artisan chocolates, you might enjoy our Artisan Chocolate Masterclass at Ground Up Cookery School in Devon.

During the course you will:

• Learn professional chocolate tempering techniques
• Use coloured cocoa butter
• Create stunning artisan chocolates
• Take home your creations
• Learn skills you can recreate at home

A Final Note

All of these products are available from a variety of suppliers. However, as Amazon Affiliates, we are shamelessly sharing these links, if you choose to purchase through them, we may earn a few pennies.

Most importantly, these are products similar to those we use ourselves and believe offer good quality, reliability and value for home chocolate makers.