Chocolate Calculator

[tonylombaardi]

Hi All,

As an avid baker and software developer, I decided to make a chocolate calculator that people could use to substitute one percentage of chocolate for another in a recipe (of course the recipe has to state a percentage to begin with, which is starting to occur more these days). You can check it out here:

ChocolateCalculator

Once you fill out the recipe percent and weight, you enter your substitute percent and it'll tell you the weight to use. It'll also suggest sugar to add or subtract.

It's done with Java. I make no guarantee that your recipe will turn out exactly the same as if you used the original chocolate but it'll probably be the best you can do with the substitution. Please let me know if you have trouble with the program.

Anthony Lombardi

[Chris Amirault]

Interesting, Tony. Can you share with us your algorithm so that we understand how you've designed this tool?

[tonylombaardi]

Sure no problem. First off I should say this is for dark, not milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is made of chocolate and sugar. When the percent says 60%, roughly 40% is sugar. The program calculates how much pure chocolate the recipe calls for. As an example, if it says 4 ounces of 60%, that's only 2.4 ounces of pure chocolate (4 * .6). The rest, roughly, is sugar. The amount of pure chocolate you get when you use a different percent should remain the same, so

recipe_chocolate_weight * recipe_chocolate_percent = substitute_chocolate_percent * substitute_chocolate_weight

The program just solves for substitute chocolate weight by dividing both sides by substitute chocolate percent.

But you want the sugar to remain the same too.

recipe_chocolate_sugar = recipe_chocolate_weight * (1 - recipe_chocolate_percent)

substitute_chocolate_sugar = substitute_chocolate_weight * (1 - substitute_chocolate_percent)

The program then just finds the difference between these two numbers. If your substitute has a lower percentage of chocolate in it, it makes sense that you need to subtract some sugar from your recipe, and vice versa. Hope that clears things up. I probably ought to post the formula on the program too.

[Lisa Shock]

What about the split?

[merstar]

The fat content has to be considered also, as each percentage has a different amount of fat, so the butter or other source of fat has to be adjusted. Alice Medrich's book "Bittersweet" has an excellent breakdown. You can view it online:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lxrZcjX4DNwC&pg=PA349&lpg=PA349&dq=alice+medrich+and+chocolate+substitutions&source=bl&ots=87sNCtSCjn&sig=Y9QteX7rDYOKDY3pIRUOz7REpOk&hl=en&ei=g-3DSueEK8_d8QaEqPnfCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Edited September 30, 2009 by merstar (log)

[tonylombaardi]

Merstar,

That's a good point. Maybe I'll research that a bit more. Obviously that'll make the program a little more complicated if I also suggested adjustments to the amount of fat. Most likely that would mean changing butter by a certain amount.

I have the Bittersweet book too and do remember reading that part. That's probably my favorite chocolate baking book so far. I'll have to compare my results with Alice's.

I just got another idea for a program. It would have common baking ingredients like butter, eggs, flour, sugar, milk, cream, whatever.. and it'll calculate %fat, %water, %protein, etc based on the amount of each. Might be useful for comparing recipes.

Lisa,

I'm sorry but I don't know what you mean by "split". I just bake for fun so maybe that's lingo I don't know.

Anthony

[paulraphael]

Merstar isn't just picking nits; in my experience the fat content will make a bigger difference to the success/failure of the recipe than the cocoa solids content. And unless you're dealing with professional couverture, this information can be hard to find.

It's actually doubly important to find it, because knowing the cocoa % tells you very little. It isn't actually an indicator of cocoa solids (even though that's the name); it tells you the cocoa solids plus naturally ocurring cocoa butter. This is why unsweetened chocolate is labelled 100% cocoa. But it's cocoa plus cocoa butter. Not all 100% cocoa chocolates will be equally dark or intense, because they will have different proportions of fat to cocoa solids.

Confusing, right?

[tonylombaardi]

If you have the nutritional information on the chocolate, it should be possible to calculate the cocoa butter percent since the label will show grams of fat. Grams of fat per serving/grams of serving should tell you percent cocoa butter right? I think that's actually how Alice Medrich explains it in Bittersweet.

Alice actually thinks the cocoa solids affects the outcome far more than the change in fat. From Bittersweet: "Many chefs cite the increase in fat to explain problems that arise using high percentage chocolates in recipes designed for standard bittersweet and semisweet chocolate. But, in fact, the proportionately larger increase in nonfat dry cocoa solids affects the outcome far more than the increase in fat."

Anyone else have opinions? I haven't tried substitutions enough to have an opinion on this.

Anthony

Edited October 1, 2009 by tonylombaardi (log)

[merstar]

"Merstar isn't just picking nits; in my experience the fat content will make a bigger difference to the success/failure of the recipe than the cocoa solids content. And unless you're dealing with professional couverture, this information can be hard to find.

It's actually doubly important to find it, because knowing the cocoa % tells you very little. It isn't actually an indicator of cocoa solids (even though that's the name); it tells you the cocoa solids plus naturally ocurring cocoa butter. This is why unsweetened chocolate is labelled 100% cocoa. But it's cocoa plus cocoa butter. Not all 100% cocoa chocolates will be equally dark or intense, because they will have different proportions of fat to cocoa solids.

Confusing, right?"

Good point, Paul, about the cacao percentage including both the solids and the cocoa butter. Just to make things more difficult, right?

[merstar]

"If you have the nutritional information on the chocolate, it should be possible to calculate the cocoa butter percent since the label will show grams of fat. Grams of fat per serving/grams of serving should tell you percent cocoa butter right? I think that's actually how Alice Medrich explains it in Bittersweet.

Alice actually thinks the cocoa solids affects the outcome far more than the change in fat. From Bittersweet: "Many chefs cite the increase in fat to explain problems that arise using high percentage chocolates in recipes designed for standard bittersweet and semisweet chocolate. But, in fact, the proportionately larger increase in nonfat dry cocoa solids affects the outcome far more than the increase in fat."

Anyone else have opinions? I haven't tried substitutions enough to have an opinion on this."

Anthony

Anthony,

Here's an article on how to calculate the cocoa solids and cocoa butter percentages:

http://www.cocoacontent.com/article_percentage_matters.html

Edited October 1, 2009 by merstar (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Sorry, the split refers to the amount of cocoa butter and cocoa solids that make up the chocolate mass. It varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and in their various products as well. However, it is usually consistent over time in one product, so that, say, one type of Felchlin 68% always has the same split. Suppliers will also custom make blends for customers upon request, so, you have to be really careful when accepting/using odd lots from rogue sources.

The posters above have done a good job of covering the importance of the split in substitutions.

[tonylombaardi]

Thanks for clarifying. I'll update the program to account for the change in cocoa butter content and do another post here when it's ready. I think I'll add it as another parameter to enter, but I'll also post the averages as listed in Bittersweet for those who don't know what it is.

[tonylombaardi]

I've updated the program so that it now suggests changes in butter amount, based on the changes in cocoa butter. Note that the calculation assumes you want to keep the amount of cocoa solids fixed when you do the substitution.