The 12 rules of chocolate. By Matt Preston

Photography by Ben Dearnley

Chocolate sauce

In this month's issue

Eat in, eat out, eat well. Look for the taste liftout on Tuesdays in the Herald Sun, Courier Mail and Daily Telegraph, on Wednesdays in the Adelaide Advertiser, and in Perth’s Sunday Times.

The experts from MasterChef have come up with these rules for working with chocolate. All you have to do is obey them at all costs!

It doesn't matter whether you are working with chocolate to make a ganache, a mousse or a tart, certain rules always apply.

And who better to help me set those rules than my own "chocolate cabinet" of professionals who are regulars with me on MasterChef - Darren Purchese from Burch & Purchese, Christy Tania from Om Nom at Melbourne's Adelphi Hotel, Bernard Chu from LuxBite who was previously a pastry chef at Sydney's Pier restaurant, and Aussie world champion chocolatier Kirsten Tibballs from Savour Chocolate School.

So here are the 12 Chocolate Commandments:

1) The basics - patience and focus

We all know that certain ingredients sense our fear and then misbehave just to spite us. Chocolate is one such spiteful beast. This is why patience and focus are both vital. Christy Tania recommends that when facing chocolate you always work fast and work clean.

2) Moisture is the enemy

If you introduce any water to chocolate you risk it seizing and going granular. So always ensure your work surface and all equipment is clean and dry.

3) Melting it

Chocolate melts faster if it is chopped into small pieces. Use a serrated knife to do this effectively. I use a small bread knife which shaves and cuts its way quickly through a block. Avoid using bain-maries or double boilers to melt chocolate as you don't want steam anywhere near your chocolate. Both Darren and Kirsten recommend using a microwave but always use a dry plastic bowl as glass retains the heat. Don't heat your chocolate too fast or too high, as it splits and becomes grainy.

4) Tempering

Know those crispy sheets of chocolate in fancy restaurant desserts that are all shiny and snap deliciously? This is how to get them. Chocolate crystals form at six different temperatures and each stage of crystallisation creates different forms of crystals and thus gives the chocolate different characteristics. For glossy chocolate with a good snap and which melts in the mouth (that is at body temperature) you want to eradicate all but the small crystals formed at the fifth level. To temper chocolate you need to melt all the crystals by heating it to 45C (48C for bitter chocolate. The temperatures are always more for dark) then cool it to 27C stirring in unmelted bits of chocolate to seed those desirable fifth level crystals. Then warm it a little to 30C or 32C to remove any level four crystals that might have formed! Now it's tempered and should be glossy, smooth and make a loud "snap" when you break off a square. Rather than messing around with thermometers Kirsten Tibballs suggests that the easiest way to temper is in the microwave. Melt it in 30-second increments until you've only got 50 per cent of the chocolate melted. Then simply stir it and it will be tempered.

5) Thinner is better

The thinner the layer of chocolate the nicer it is to eat, whether it's a shard, a sheet or a curl.

6) Getting the shine

If you want a shine on your chocolate it needs to contract on a polished surface. The best way to achieve this, says Darren Purchese, is to let it cool on plastic or patissier's acetate.

7) Salt it

Chocolate loves salt but how much is always an issue. Kirsten Tibballs suggests increasing the quantity of salt in line with the percentage of the chocolate used - up to 2 per cent salt for bitter 70-80 per cent dark chocolate.

8) The perfect flavours with white chocolate

Ask my chocolate cabinet and raspberry is the dream partner for them, all bar Bernard who loves the bitterness of macha, aka green tea powder, which balances white chocolate's extra sweetness. Darren is also a big fan of white chocolate and mandarin. In my book, white chocolate loves salt, sesame seeds and both blueberries and blackberries.

9) The perfect flavours with milk chocolate

While Kirsten votes for passionfruit, Darren for Earl Grey and Bernard for anything fruity, all agree with Christy's suggestion of caramel. But I'd also add peanut
butter and coffee ... and bananas, strawberries, and most nuts.

10) The perfect flavours with dark chocolate

Caramel is also a popular match - especially a salty caramel - but Christy also suggests Morello cherries because these have sourness and sweetness to balance dark chocolate's bitterness. Orange or mandarin are Darren's faves while Bernard is a mint fan. I've found that dark chocolate loves pears, figs, raspberries, cherries, coffee, rum, muscat and dried fruit.

11) Roasting white chocolate

To make a delicious scoopable white chocolate ganache roast 200g of fancy white chocolate buttons in a 120C oven for 20 to 25 minutes until they can be smeared to reveal a golden roasted interior. Scrape the roasted white chocolate into a clean dry bowl with 60g of butter and let them melt together.Now pour over 185ml of scalded cream and mix so they combine. Leave to set in the bowl or in a pastry case in a cool place. If adding a liquid to chocolate it should always be a warm liquid.