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Tempering white chocolate


beacheschef

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I've been using the Cacao Noel brand of chocolate for about a year and really like working with the semisweet and bittersweet chocolate for molding, as well as for dipping pieces into.

Today I'm working on a customer's order for white chocolate shells on her wedding cake, and am having trouble with the white chocolate. It's like working with chocolate chips! No matter whether I temper by hand or in my machine, the chocolate is so thick (viscous?) that it won't melt and become fluid. I've added cocoa butter to the batch I'm hand tempering, which has helped temendously.

Has anyone else had this problem with Noel white chocolate? I don't want to invest any more money in Noel white chocolate if it's a known issue. Or - have I just gotten a fluke box that may not have been stored properly?

The best before date is 07/2010.

Thanks!

Beaches Pastry

May your celebrations be sweet!

Beaches Pastry Blog

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I just eyeballed the amount of cocoa butter to add. Is there a better way to do it?

I added "some" cocoa butter (not melted) to the white chocolate before temering, and was

pleased with the resulting tempered chocolate.

Cocoal butter needs to be tempered with the chocolate - right?

Beaches Pastry

May your celebrations be sweet!

Beaches Pastry Blog

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Hi,

Sorry that I don't have answer to your initial question (haven't heard of Cacao Noel), although I can confirm that you do need to temper the cocoa butter with the melted chocolate. The tempering process is all to do with the cocoa butter- there are 6 different ways that cocoa butter can crystalise, and only one ("form V") gives you glossy, snappy chocolate. The tempering process is designed to crystalise the cocoa butter into form V crystals, so you wouldn't want to go to all the bother of tempering a batch of chocolate only to add more, non-tempered cocoa butter afterwards.

I used to buy Lindt couverture chocolate in 2kg blocks, I've never been very fussy with white chocolate as I don't find much variation between brands (as compared to the dark stuff). The Lindt melted well, however it was clearly labeled a couverture so the cocoa butter content would have been relatively high.

But I'm interested to know if adding cocoa butter affects the colour much? Does it make the chocolate more yellow? I'm wondering if it's a problem for you to match white chocolate (which is usually a bit yellow) to the icing on the wedding cake?

Cheers,

-Chris

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I always just eyeball it too, sorry I can't be more precise. I have added small amounts of melted cocoa butter to tempered chocolate to adjust viscosity. So long as it's not so hot as to bring the temperature up above temper, it works fine. Give it some good agitation to seed the cocoa butter and bring it into temper as well.

ChrisZ - at the small quantities needed to adjust viscosity, I haven't noticed any impact on the color of the white chocolate.

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ChrisZ - I don't see any noticable difference in color when cocoa butter is added to white chocolate. This is what the shells I molded yesterday look like, with the yellow-ish color to them.

white chocolate shells1.jpg

When I mold white chocolate sea shells for wedding cakes, I usually dust the shells with a touch of pearl dust, for a bit of glimmer when the lights dim around the cake.It helps decrease the yellow tint and reflects light.

Beaches Pastry

May your celebrations be sweet!

Beaches Pastry Blog

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I was in the same boat. My first chocolate was Noel. I used their Lactee and their Royal along with the White. I loved the Royal, but thought the Lactee had an odd taste. Anyhow, the white is crap. I mean it. It tastes great, but man - its thick! I added over an entire bar of cocoa butter to it and still couldn't get it to mold. No matter what you do, it wont change its viscosity. Now I use Lindt and love it(shameless plug)! Its the most fluid white chocolate Ive found (although I'd love to try El Rey White if my local Wild Oats ever carries enough to make through the first ten customers of the day!). Anyhow, take it from a guy that toyed with Noel while I cut my teeth into chocolatiering.. their product line is decent (you certainly can't beat the price!) but you'd have better luck getting play-dough to thin out than their white.

"It only hurts if it bites you" - Steve Irwin

"Whats another word for Thesaurus?" - Me

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Your'e welcome! For the price, its a great deal, and like I said, their darker stuff is excellent. I love the "whiteness" of the white and its vanilla taste, but I found little use for it since I couldn't mold it.

"It only hurts if it bites you" - Steve Irwin

"Whats another word for Thesaurus?" - Me

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