pastrygirl

I think a lot of times when meringue buttercream looks like a failure it can actually be salvaged just by beating more. Soupy? Beat more! Looking curdled? Beat more!

I've been thinking about this recently. I generally call it cocoa butter, but I suspect cacao butter would be more correct since cacao is the fruit. But then should cocoa powder also be cacao powder? Should 'cocoa' only be used to refer to a hot beverage? I think @keychris is right, 'cacao' is marketed towards to woo-woo health & wellness market to differentiate it from chocolate and candy. FWIW, my Felchlin boxes list cacao kernel and cacao butter as ingredients, while my Valrhona bags list cocoa butter and powder in English and cacao in every other language. Some of my finished products list cacao, cacao butter, and cocoa powder in accordance with the original labels but I've been wondering if I should pick one and be consistent.

amylase? https://joepastry.com/2013/egg-yolks-the-enzyme-problem/

I believe it was around 1999 or 2000 when I was at my first restaurant job. I don't recall what changes may have been made, I was just a pastrygirl trying to figure out my plated dessert menus, not involved in management. But yeah, I think you'd have to raise menu prices and cut a few hours of labor where you can.

I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with atmospheric water absorption. Chocolate is always packaged in something moisture resistant and the sugar is not so incredibly hygroscopic that it is sucking water out of the air through its coating of cocoa butter. Remember, fat is waterproof and we’re talking dense, fatty chocolate, not cotton candy.

The lack of tip credit is why so many restaurateurs on the west coast are trying various service charges. Here in Seattle minimum wage for everyone is $13/hr. Cooks are making $16-20, and tipping habits haven’t changed so servers are making more like $30+ with tips. Americans seem to love tipping, so service charges aren’t always well received. I dont have an answer, but it (labor cost shooting up) does throw a wrench into things and widen the front vs back of house divide. Good luck!

Does anyone have any non-couverture chocolate that they can check the ingredients for added cocoa butter? I think for bars, you're fine with just cacao and sugar, it's the thin shell molding and enrobing that begs for added fluidity.

Chef's choice! I think anywhere around 50-85 grams or 2-3 oz is a good bar size. Though I suppose a "reasonable" serving size is more like an ounce of chocolate at a time.

Is extra cocoa butter always added? I thought there was enough fat in the nibs already. I checked a couple of Felchlin couverture boxes, and they do have cocoa butter listed as an ingredient but I know there are other chocolate makers who make a big deal about using only two ingredients, cacao and sugar. So maybe the extra fat is only if you want couverture? Dandelion is one of the 'we use only cacao and sugar' companies: "Even amongst our fellow New American makers, our chocolate is special because we only use two ingredients: cacao and sugar. We don’t add cocoa butter, vanilla, lecithin, or any of the other usual chocolate suspects". http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/process/#anchor Bellflower, too. I actually checked out this guy's "factory" a few months ago, they have a tiny roaster and do production in a converted 2 car garage in a residential area. It gave me hope for the commercial kitchen pipe dreams I have for my garage. http://www.bellflowerchocolate.com/bean-to-bar-chocolate/ However, I can't tell you how smooth or fluid either of those chocolates are.

Was trying to explain percentages over on another food site, where someone had used Callebaut 70% as an example. The chocolate is 'minimum cocoa 70.5%' and has a breakdown of 38.9% cocoa butter and 33.6% fat free cocoa solids, which add up to 72.5%. Another poster says "you wouldn't expect the 38.9 + 33.6 to equal 70.5, for the same reason that a cup of water and a cup of sugar equal less than two cups total volume" which I'm not sure makes sense. Sugar dissolves in water and a cup of each will make 1.5 cups of simple syrup. But chocolate is solids suspended in fat, and Callebaut would be starting with the whole bean, not mixing pure cocoa butter and totally fat free cocoa powder. So, what's up with the 2% variance? Anyone have an explanation, or is it actually 72% labeled as 70%? https://www.callebaut.com/en-US/chocolate-cocoa-nuts/70-30-38nv/70-30-38

Probably. But also consider that nibs already have a significant portion of the work done - the roasting, cracking, winnowing, and a preliminary chop - so they may be higher priced than raw or whole beans. And sugar is inexpensive, so that drives the price down unless you're making a 100% unsweetened chocolate.

Well, the other day I was airbrushing a mold and needed to keep my brush warm while I melted another color of cocoa butter - I almost took a pic to show you a new use

Painter's tape isn't very sticky, especially on cardboard. I'd go with a heartier duct tape.

No, the cacao solids are pink rather than brown. Maybe it starts out more ruby colored before they add white milk and sugar that dilute the color. Cacao butter is off-white once separated from the rest of the bean.

Ahhh, when I saw the 68% on the package, I thought that was the cacao % (you know you're a chocolatier when ...) So the kit kat is 32% crispy wafer fingers and 68% chocolate, which is 47% cacao milk chocolate?

Cocoa mass is pretty far down the list. I'm surprised that milk powders are the third ingredient. There can't be more milk in the wafers than wheat flour, so is ruby actually a milk chocolate? Or a milk chocolate for KitKat, at least?

I had also been thinking of popcorn or caramel corn in chocolate, but as pieces. Wheat-free and not a nut Making it a smooth "milk" chocolate is an interesting idea! Now I'm thinking smooth rice and cinnamon horchata 'milk' chocolate. Or white chocolate! Theo already has a milk chocolate horchata bar but it would be interesting to try a non-dairy version. Rice, CB, sugar, cinnamon, maybe a little macadamia butter ...

Exactly. What are we missing? Aren't starches just complex sugars? Ha! I just want to know what he's expecting to go wrong. Maybe it will be revealed, or maybe I'll need to try it for myself. I have the tools ...

Yes, if the pieces stayed that size. Simply mixing in dry chunks doesn’t really affect chocolate, but if you’re grinding it to perfectly smooth, as Kerry said the smaller and smaller particles will require more fat to keep moving. But the butter on the popcorn would help. I’m just not seeing why a pastry pro would say it shouldn’t work. It’ll work with more fat, that’s a simple solution. Problematic if the popcorn isn’t buttery enough or you don’t have extra cocoa butter, I guess.

Right, but doesn’t that apply to anything dry? Nonfat dry milk, sugar, freeze dried fruit ... I guess it’s problematic if you don’t want to add extra cocoa butter.

saw this post and questioned why “in theory, this won’t work”, response so far is “starch in chocolate can be problematic” Ok ... obviously adding a lot of fine dry material will decrease fluidity, and things could get weird if you were going to add cream and make ganache, but how else would milling popcorn into chocolate “not work”? My experiments so far suggest you just need enough warm cocoa butter to keep things moving, how would starchy popcorn be different from fibrous fruits?

You’re welcome, I hadn’t read all the way through to see that you had placed your order. But for other curious shoppers outside of the US, it’s one price for the size of the box, no matter how heavy or how far it’s going. Seems expensive to cross one friendly border, but a pretty good deal when shipping to a village in the Himalayas.

Flat rate international is about $45 for a medium box, so you want it packed full! Screenshot from USPS.com -

Beeswax is solid at room temp so I don’t know how you could spray it unless it was thinned considerably with something else. It should be food grade, isn’t it just honeycomb?