* grill
* receiving bowl
* tempered chocolate or melted coating (40°C)
* receiver to pour chocolate or coating
* small palette knife
* pastry/cakes/biscuits…

Temper the chocolate and pour into the receiver. You can also melt the chocolate and mix it with fondant sugar at ±35°C. The advantage of doing this is that a similar layer will crack or break less easily.
If you are using a hard coating or socalled baker's coating, you do not need to temper it. Melt at 40°C and then immediately after the dipping cool for the glaze. (see later). The same is true for the soft coatings.
If you are covering with chocolate (or a mixture of chocolate and fondant sugar), it should be at room temperature to pour over pastries, cakes…. Afterwards, it's best to let the layer harden at room temperature without cooling. Is the workroom warmer than 20°C? Allow to harden at room temperature and then place in the refrigerator. Too abrupt a change in temperature (but also cooling too slowly) affects the glazing of the chocolate.
If you are covering with a coating, you can even do this to a deep frozen product. If the product is at room temperature, after the coating place it in the refrigerator immediately! The abrupt temperature shock gives the coating layer a beautiful sheen.

Place the receiving bowl under the grate.

Place the pastry on the grate.

Pour the chocolate onto the upper surface of the pastry. Lift the grill up and make rolling movements to distribute the chocolate over the pastry faster and let surplus chocolate run off the edges of the pastry.

Are the edges and the top of the pastry completely uniform? Then in one gentle movement of the palette knife smooth the surplus chocolate off the pastry.

For pastries on which you only want to coat the upper surface: hold the pastry upside down and dip the upper surface into the chocolate or coating. Allow to drip with gentle up and down movements then place on the grate. (e.g. turban-shaped cake).

Slip the palette knife under the pastry to remove it from the grate.

Place the pastry on a paper.

* For chocolate: do not wait too long! When the chocolate layer hardens, it will stick against the grate and might get damaged when moving the pastry from the grate. Allow to harden on the paper at room temperature and avoid abrupt temperature shock. Afterwards - or if the temperature in the workroom is too high - put it in the refrigerator (10°C).

* For coatings: place in the refrigerator immediately after enrobing. These products need to be cooled rapidly in order to develop a good sheen.

Chocolates:

Depending on the thickness of the layer that you wish to obtain, you can choose different chocolates. All basic types () have a viscosity suitable for enrobing with a medium layer.

If you want a thicker layer, then it is better to choose a chocolate that contains less cocoa butter: 2% to 3%, identified by the letters B or C before the basic code (). Less cocoa butter means less runny chocolate, which allows enrobing with a thicker layer.

* Hard coatings or bakers' coatings:
These are imitation chocolates based partly or completely on vegetable fats other than cocoa butter. Advantages: you don't need to temper them, only to melt them at 40°C. After processing, you have to cool them quickly to let them glaze. Their appearance and 'break' is similar to that of traditional chocolate.

* Soft coatings
Here again, Callebaut offers a wide range of coatings with a chocolate flavour, based on vegetable fats. They stay soft and so should not tear or break. As well as these, there are coatings with a nut flavour which g:ive a beautiful appearance and a hearty taste to cakes, croissants and pastries.