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Rajala

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    Chocolate brands - What's good and bad?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted · Edited by Rajala
    Grammar? Maybe it was correct before edit, no idea. :) (log)

    Great suggestions and tips.

     

    I have no issues with buying different brands, that will only be a problem when I'm famous and have some partnership with a brand. 😂

     

    At the moment, I do favor Cocoa Barry because I love their Madirofolo chocolate. But I also tried some amazing variants from Michel Cluizel. But I don't really know if the average Jane would notice if you use the standard stuff from Callebaut or Michel Cluizel. At the moment I'm just playing around with different brands, trying to come up with some good recipes, so I can have a selection of maybe 15-20 different bonbons. Maybe an idea would be to offer a selection of some which are soy free - and see if anyone actually is interested in that.

     

    • Like 2

    Chocolate brands - What's good and bad?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Tri2Cook said:

    What's good is what you like. What's bad is what you don't like. In case you think I'm being flippant, I'm not. Watch the replies and see how many different chocolates are listed as good or bad and how many of the same chocolates are listed as good by one person and bad by another. Taste and use what you like. Don't worry about what someone else thinks about it unless they're giving you their money for it.

     

    That is true. But it's always interesting to hear opinions and have discussions. :) 

    • Like 1

    Chocolate brands - What's good and bad?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, understandingcocoa said:

    Casa Luker was a big no on taste for me, I taste tasted it on a group of friends (after getting free samples of at least 10 varieties) and it was negative feedback all round. It all seemed to have a very smokey/whisky like taste too.

     

    Interested to see what you think of them!

     

      

     

    I'll let you know. I'm going to have a taste session at work to see what my colleagues think. :) 

    Chocolate brands - What's good and bad?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    43 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

    Felchlin has a few formulations without soy, the Arriba 72% is one that I use.  Price-wise, they have a range; I believe the  ones without soy are also the ones with a very long conch time and tend to be more expensive, closer to Valrhona pricing. 

     

    I get the soy question occasionally, somewhere between the number of people looking for sugar free and the number looking for vegan.  I don't think the soy lecithin in chocolate is enough to trigger an allergy, people may be more concerned about GMO soy or something else that may or may not be pseudoscience woo.  So it's one concern, but personally  not high on my list.  You can't please everyone all the time!

     

    Yeah, I don't think it will happen all the time. He mentioned something about soy being dangerous because they use gasoline to get the lecithin out or something, haven't fact checked that yet though. It comes and goes as well, I guess - what people have concerns about. I'll see if I can test Felchlin, not sure if I have a local supplier of that.

     

    22 minutes ago, teonzo said:

    I would suggest to give a try to these 2:

    - Belcolade (no lecithin if I'm right);

    - Weiss

     

     

     

    Teo

     

     

    Thanks for the suggestions. I've seen Belcolade mentioned in works by Stéphane Leroux, but I've never seen it for sale anywhere. Weiss is a new one for me.

    • Like 1

    Chocolate brands - What's good and bad?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    I'm considering opening up a little webshop to sell some chocolate and some other stuff, and one important thing is to source the products you work with. Chocolate is one of these. So I'm trying to look at various brands and see what's good and what's bad, I'm also thinking about brands that I don't know off, and I'd rather buy from a smaller company doing their own thing than from publicly traded giants such as Savencia Fromage and Dairy or Barry Callebaut. But in the end, price is of course always important. If money wasn't an issue, Original Beans is the one to pick. But it always is, unfortunately. :) 

     

    You may wonder why I have soy lecithin listed under cons; it's simply because I've spoken with chocolatiers who have told me that customers who comes in to their stores ask about chocolate without soy lecithin. I was at an event where one guy pushed a Barry Callebaut rep really hard about this, so it actually seems to be a real concern where we live (I hadn't heard about it prior to this event.) I'm not saying that I'll not work with chocolate who have this, because so far I've only found a two brands which doesn't use it.

     

    This is my "research" so far, please let me know of brands that I've excluded due to lack of knowledge. I don't have plans at the moment to only work with a single brand, but it's easier to get good quotes if you buy in higher volume and it is of course good if the customer can expect the product to taste fairly the same, if they come back for more!

     

    Callebaut

     

    Pros

    - Affordable

    - Taste is good enough

     

    Cons

    - Soy lecithin 

    - Haven't tried all their variants, but most of what I've tried have a weird texture, like there's sugar you can feel on your tongue

     

    Cacao Barry

     

    Pros

    - Great taste and texture at a mid segment price

    - Single plantation chocolate available which is bio certified (and tastes good)

     

    Cons

    - Soy lecithin

     

    Valrhona

     

    Pros

    - Good product range

    - Great taste and texture

     

    Cons

    - High price

    - Soy lecithin

     

    Michel Cluizel

     

    Pros

    - Great taste and texture

    - Rapeseed lecithin

    - Mini "callets". Will melt fast.

     

    Cons

    - Price. More expensive than Cocoa Barry, but not as expensive as Valrhona. Although close.

     

    Original Beans

     

    Pros

    - Great company with products from very good causes such as Femmes de Virunga

    - Every product is bio certified

    - Great taste and texture

    - No lecithin

     

    Cons

    - Price. Some variants more expensive than Valrhona.

     

    Casa Luker

     

    Pros

    - Great quote on price

    - Taste? (just got samples delivered today, haven't had the time to taste them yet. Delivered too chilled, need to wait a bit for it to reach normal temperatures)

     

    Cons

    - Soy lecithin

    - Very big "callets". Almost needs to be chopped up before melting to save time.

    Options for a chocolate nerd during summer

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    9 hours ago, keychris said:

    You can get quite small icecream churners that you pre-freeze the bowl instead of the machine cooling it if you really want to ;)

     

    That wouldn't fit in my freezer, too many things in there. Space is an issue for everything when you live in a one room apartment. :D 

     

    Someone did tell me that you can make ice cream with the help of dry ice, but that would also be like time consuming ordering it etc. 

     

    8 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

    Buy ice cream and work on the perfect hot fudge sauce or chocolate cookies for ice cream sandwiches.

     

    Something like that would work. I shouldn't just focus on "one thing". It's always good to learn more (I can probably make cookies, but to make them perfect!)

     

    With my "luck", summer is probably past me soon anyway. The summer in this country is usually short, unfortunately.

    Spraying glaze on frozen mousse

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted · Edited by Rajala (log)

    Success! Glaze was at around 70° when I sprayed the mousse. It's a bit hard to see if you glazed it enough, when you don't color the glaze though. No clogging until I stopped spraying (I did leave the gun in the oven at 50°, to warm it up a bit, which might've helped with that.)

     

    I'll post a picture when I've made the real attempt. This was just "faux" mousse to see if it would work. Don't want to waste expensive ingredients in the try outs. :) 

     

    Edit: for future reference; I used a 1,5mm nozzle.

    • Like 1

    Spraying glaze on frozen mousse

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    I'm just going to spray one little petit gateaux this time, so I don't think I need to worry that much about clogging. It's a test to see if it works with the mousse from the molds I've made. One part is just 1 cm thick, I'm thinking that it might melt a bit if it's too hot. But we'll see.

     

    Just cooked up a batch of neutral glaze and got the new hvlp gun with the mail today. Test starts tomorrow. :)

     

     

    Spraying glaze on frozen mousse

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    16 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

    So you'll buy a new piece of equipment if someone tells you that you need to - instead of pulling out the gun you have and giving it a try? What's the worst that can happen - you need to clean the gun if it doesn't work?

     

    Truth be told, I plan to buy a new gun anyway. That way I can have one for cb and one for things with water in it. :) It's only ~30 CAD.

     

    16 hours ago, keychris said:

    can you dip it into the glaze instead of pouring the glaze over?

     

    That's a good suggestion, but it won't work with this little piece. You'll know why, if you see it when I'm done. I'll post a picture in some thread at least. :D 

     

    4 hours ago, teonzo said:

    I've done this using a 2.5 mm one, worked perfectly. Never tried with a smaller one, worst case scenario is that it clogs and you just need to clean it, so just go for it.

    Beware you need to use hot neutral glaze (heat it in the microwave till it starts boiling).

     

    Teo

     

     

    Thanks Teo! Do you know how hot it needs to be? I've heard 60°, but maybe you can go lower after you've heated it.

    Spraying glaze on frozen mousse

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    I've earlier sprayed cocoa butter mixed with white chocolate and some color, to get that velvety appearance on a frozen mouse petit gateaux. However, what I'm working on now needs to be sprayed with a "neutral glaze", since it wouldn't work with pouring the glaze over it - like it would with a regular cake or something.

     

    Have anyone done this earlier? I'm not sure which kind of tools to use. I have my compressor and and a HVLP gun, but that's only 0.5mm. Not sure if that would be enough or if I should aim for something with a bit wider nozzle. I know that it would work to spray this with one of those Bosch paint sprayers etc, but I'd rather not buy more big things. :D 

     

    Any suggestions? 

    'Ruby' the Fourth Chocolate frontier?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Je33 said:

    The price hasn't been released by my usual suppliers just yet but im interpreting what the official Callebaut ppl were saying about it being 'rare ' & 'limited supply' so expect it to be reflected in the price. I honestly have no idea as yet and I'm just guessing 

     

    That's just sales talk I guess, I was laughing for myself during the presentation when they said that. But maybe this price point is expensive in some kind of view. I would've expected it to be 20 EUR or more per kg when they defined it as expensive. But maybe they just compare it to the budget priced products that they sell?

     

    You can buy it here - https://www.bouwhuis.com/callebaut-chocolade-callets-ruby-10-kg -  a little bit more than 10 EUR per kg, but not by much. :)

     

     

    'Ruby' the Fourth Chocolate frontier?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Pastrypastmidnight said:

    It seems like everyone I have heard a report from has been somewhat ambivalent about it. But, man, they marketed the heck out of the stuff. 

     

    Well, it's kind of hard when there's no reference I guess? I told the Callebaut rep that many people will probably see it as "their competitors products with fruit flavor". But in the end it's not like the big pile of consumers know about Valrhona's inspiration. I think it's a really tough thing for marketing, but you can easily see that the color is one of those things they're pushing for. I got a pink bottle for water, I got a pink apron and a pink bowl (to prepare my future ruby in I guess). I mean, you do actually see before you taste - so it's nothing weird. I would happily buy some Ruby to play around with if it were available in the regular 2,5 KG bags - but they're pushing for 10 KG packages - and that would last me forever.

    'Ruby' the Fourth Chocolate frontier?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    I got to try ruby today. I kind of liked it, I don't have any amazing taste whatever they're called, but it was nice. Felt a bit like a sour white chocolate. Tried it in a few different ways, a bonbon with caramel and strawberry compote, a kind of energy drink and panned almonds. Really need to try it a lot more before I can make up my mind.

     

    In the end, I guess it's more of a chocolate than white chocolate. RB1 have some cocoa mass in it at least, even if it's only 4.5 percent. :D 

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