Caramel Chocolate

[schneich]

hi,

does anyone have an idea how to produce a caramel chocolate. the small round palets by j.p.hevin have a very intense caramel flavour but other than that they looked like a normal milkchocolate (maybe a little light in color). i could cook an intense butter caramel and add it to the chocolate, but i guess all will get will be a broken mess, or be untemperable. another idea iss to dry caramelize the sugar and deglaze with cream cook off all water, and throw in cocoa butter :-) does that sound weird... ??

any other ideas or recipes ?? please help..

cheers

torsten s.

[lapin d'or]

On the Hevin website they list caramel chocolate drops for sale with these ingredients 'Cocoa minimum : 33% ,Sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, caramel powder'.

I wonder if they use this flavoured chocolate to make their rounds? Could you reproduce it by adding very finely ground caramel to tempered chocolate?

I have a Hevin recipe book but there is nothing in there that sounds the same. A chocolate flavoured caramel but not caramel flavoured chocolate!

[John DePaula]

Yes, I think that Lapin has it right. Cook some sugar to just short of a burnt caramel, pour onto silpat and let cool; break up and pulverize in robo-coupe; add this to hot cream and chocolate to make a ganache in the usual way.

Hope this helps.

[mrose]

Yes, I think that Lapin has it right.  Cook some sugar to just short of a burnt caramel, pour onto silpat and let cool; break up and pulverize in robo-coupe; add this to hot cream and chocolate to make a ganache in the usual way.

Hope this helps.

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One of the recipes in the Shotts book for banana truffles has you make caramel shards. You process it food processor. After adding to truffles it give a caramel taste but the moist seems soften it. I made this & you don't have any sense that the shards were in the truffle.

[K8memphis]

Yes, I think that Lapin has it right.  Cook some sugar to just short of a burnt caramel, pour onto silpat and let cool; break up and pulverize in robo-coupe; add this to hot cream and chocolate to make a ganache in the usual way.

Hope this helps.

←

One of the recipes in the Shotts book for banana truffles has you make caramel shards. You process it food processor. After adding to truffles it give a caramel taste but the moist seems soften it. I made this & you don't have any sense that the shards were in the truffle.

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But you could taste it in there?

[mrose]

Yes, I think that Lapin has it right.  Cook some sugar to just short of a burnt caramel, pour onto silpat and let cool; break up and pulverize in robo-coupe; add this to hot cream and chocolate to make a ganache in the usual way.

Hope this helps.

←

One of the recipes in the Shotts book for banana truffles has you make caramel shards. You process it food processor. After adding to truffles it give a caramel taste but the moist seems soften it. I made this & you don't have any sense that the shards were in the truffle.

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But you could taste it in there?

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You could taste it a bit. If you wanted a stronger taste put more in than Shotts did.

[prairiegirl]

I just got back from a demo by Derek Poirier, Valrhona chef. He was on the American pastry team with Andrew Shotts. The first demo he did was...CARAMEL GANACHE!!!

Ingredients:

345 g sugar

125 g melted butter

680 g whipping cream 35%

45 g glucose

345 g dark chocolate (Tainori 64%) You could use what ever you want.

Make a dry caramel with sugar. Derek says tht you should cook until you see foam on top. Says most people don't cook long enough. Deglaze with the melted butter and finish with the hot mixture of cream and glucose.

Create a proper emulsion with the melted chocolate.

Allow to crystallize in the fridge for 4-6 hours.

To create a proper emulsion you must pore tje caramel mixture into the melted chocolate. And not all at once. Pore maybe 1/4 and then emulsify with an immersion blender, add some more, blend.... The ganache may break at first, but as you add more liquid it will emulsify.

My notes about emulsifying:

Derek says chocolate and liquid don't mix, therefore you must emulsify properly. If done properly you will get an outstanding texture and awesome mouth feel. When working with the ganache you must make sure you keep the base temp up at about 35 C. If you have added 1/2 your liquid and the temp has dropped to below 35 C then put in micro to warm slightly. Derek used a laser thermometer to check. Oh, I should say that he says that the chocolate should be melted to 45 C before added any liquid (such as the cream). The 2nd best way to melt chocolate is the micro, but ultimately the best is if you had the heater oven or maybe even your mol d'art and melt over night (12 hours).

The glucose (10% of total weight), or invert helps with texture. The invert also acts as a preservative.

If you add butter to the ganache, make sure the ganache is 40 C or less and that the butter is soft, then mix it in. Best to use the immersion blender.

Hope these notes help. He passed the caramel ganache around and it was very very nice. I attended the Callebaut demo with Derek Pho and he had a totally different method for doing ganaches. His method was to pour hot cream over chipits and let rest for 2 minutes. Then use a robot coupe or immersion blender to mix. Every chef has a different style. I would say that the Valhona demo today produced very nice ganaches that had an excellent texture...this leads to fabulous moutfeel which is an essential part of every chocolatier's success.

I am hoping to have some pictues emailed to me to be posted here just showcasing some plated desserts that Derek did.

Good luck!

[Tri2Cook]

Maybe I misread his post but I don't think he's looking for a ganache. I think he's talking about chocolate, temperable and able to be used anywhere you would use any other chocolate, that has a caramel flavor. Maybe make a caramel, bring the temp down, work it into some melted chocolate then see if you can temper it? I have no idea if it would work but I'm willing to give it a shot. Worst case I'll have some caramel flavored chocolate I can't temper. I'm sure I can find something to do with it.

[prairiegirl]

Maybe I misread his post but I don't think he's looking for a ganache. I think he's talking about chocolate, temperable and able to be used anywhere you would use any other chocolate, that has a caramel flavor. Maybe make a caramel, bring the temp down, work it into some melted chocolate then see if you can temper it? I have no idea if it would work but I'm willing to give it a shot. Worst case I'll have some caramel flavored chocolate I can't temper. I'm sure I can find something to do with it.

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You may be right but hopefully this info is helpful to others.

[Lior]

Thanks for the recipe! I will try it! Did he have one for chocolate sauce or fondue by any chance! I appreciate th dtailed description-that is so important!

[schneich]

tri2cook is right, what iam after is a temperable chocolate, the way i see it you have to atomize the caramel and add it to the chocolate, but i doubt that my robot coupe can turn caramel into a really really fine powder. i found this nifty machine that maybe does the trick:

chocolate stone grinder

cheers

t.

[Kerry Beal]

tri2cook is right, what iam after is a temperable chocolate, the way i see it you have to atomize the caramel and add it to the chocolate, but i doubt that my robot coupe can turn caramel into a really really fine powder. i found this nifty machine that maybe does the trick:

chocolate stone grinder

cheers

t.

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I've got one of those - from my foray into bean to bar chocolate. I actually did make one batch using ground up caramelized sugar but it suffered from some other problems that didn't allow me to assess the final product.

[schneich]

may i ask what those problems were... is the stuff "caking" toghether as you grind it..

cheers

t.

[Kerry Beal]

may i ask what those problems were... is the stuff "caking" toghether as you grind it..

cheers

t.

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It was a while back, but I think it was a problem of one of grinding stones not turning - I had to take the unit back and replace it, so no fault of the caramelized sugar. The caramelized sugar powder was quite hygroscopic as I recall.

[Kerry Beal]

I wonder if the nougasec (ie the caramelized sugar with some tapioca maltodextrin added) might solve the hygroscopic problem and make it possible to make a temperable chocolate with the caramelized sugar.

[schneich]

you know what, when i wrote the nougasec reply that also came across my mind. i guess igotta try it :-)

cheers

t.