Having success with chocolate doesn’t require a trip to culinary school or tutelage from a master chocolatier living high in the Swiss Alps. You simply need to understand a few basic rules. Cooking with chocolate typically involves melting it, and often, other ingredients are added to the melted chocolate. For example, adding cream to melted chocolate creates a sauce called ganache. Ganache can also be made with a number of other ingredients, including liqueurs, fruit purees, nut butters, and spices (via Handle the Heat). Before other ingredients are added, however, chocolate must go through a melting process called tempering. This process, which is used to give melted chocolate a desirable consistency, is sensitive to both temperature and moisture. If the chocolate reaches temperatures above 130 degrees Fahrenheit, it will burn and be unusable. If even a small amount of water or liquid is added to chocolate before it is tempered, it can cause the chocolate to seize (via Ghiradelli). Read more about tempering HERE.