Nib to Bar Milk Chocolate

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry - i've not looked in the Canadian grocery stores for many years, but you used to be able to buy boxed NFDM (in the same aisle as condensed milk). I'd start there..I've got a link to the LoL milk fat somewhere at home - i'm currently travelling so you'll have to wait until i get home to dig it out. If my memory fails, don't hesitate to remind me 8-)

Deb - Ghee will work just fine. In fact, i prefer the flavor. Regarding how much to use, that's a little bit up to personal preference. I think and work in formulation %'s. I'd recommend starting with a formulation that has about 4% milk fat, and adjust from there. If you'd like, you can calculate how much milk fat would be required to be paired with NFDM to achieve what's essentially a reconstituted WMP, by targeting a 'milk blend' fat of 26-28%. But that just sounds like more work to me 8-)

Last year i worked on a project to teach my daughter how to make chocolate, including building a small scale factory - which she then sold the chocolate to benefit the homeless. She raised thousands and thousands of dollars - so it was very effective, and she learned alot. We focused on dark chocolate. If we do it again, I'm going to help her build a crumb oven and teach her how to make crumb based milk chocolate. Some of the basics that I'd teach her are the same as those above 8-)

So how do they make crumb? That was my next research project as I was interested in getting some of the caramel flavour in the milk chocolate that I prefer.

[Sebastian]

Lots of trade secret information here, i'm probably not going to offer up anything other than you need to wrap your arms around using water in your chocolate production. Fluid milk has lots of moisture in it. Lots of technical hurdles to overcome, the most immediate of which you'll wrestle with is, of course, the fact that chocolate doesn't much care to have water added to it...

I'm not sure how available this is on a very small level, but there are milk manufacturers that do make pre-caramalized milk powders. If you're able to identify retail quantities of that, it'd be much, much, much easier way of delivering caramlized milk flavor in your chocolate.

[Kerry Beal]

Lots of trade secret information here, i'm probably not going to offer up anything other than you need to wrap your arms around using water in your chocolate production. Fluid milk has lots of moisture in it. Lots of technical hurdles to overcome, the most immediate of which you'll wrestle with is, of course, the fact that chocolate doesn't much care to have water added to it...

I'm not sure how available this is on a very small level, but there are milk manufacturers that do make pre-caramalized milk powders. If you're able to identify retail quantities of that, it'd be much, much, much easier way of delivering caramlized milk flavor in your chocolate.

I was under the impression that crumb was caramelized milk and chocolate - is it simply caramelized milk powder?

[Sebastian]

If you're looking to add caramel flavor to your milk chocolate, i'm saying that there are cooked milk powders commercially available that you may wish to consider vs trying to decipher how to make crumb chocolate at home. it's certainly not the same as a full fledged crumb chocolate, but it'll be more caramalized than what you've already made with your WMP, and will have a much lower barrier to entry 8-)

[Kerry Beal]

If you're looking to add caramel flavor to your milk chocolate, i'm saying that there are cooked milk powders commercially available that you may wish to consider vs trying to decipher how to make crumb chocolate at home. it's certainly not the same as a full fledged crumb chocolate, but it'll be more caramalized than what you've already made with your WMP, and will have a much lower barrier to entry 8-)

I'll see what I can find!

[Sebastian]

found the AMF retail link:

http://www.foodservicedirect.com/product.cfm/p/186536/Land-O-Lakes-Clarified-Butter-30-Pound.htm

it's actually bigger than i thought it was, i've not spent the time to find out if there's smaller quantities or not. If you opt to use this, let me know and i'll give some additional pointers if you'd like.

Edit:

added a link to some interesting milk powders, resulting from just a quick search with my good friend Google. I don't have the time now to do anything more detailed, and it'd be shipping from a long way away, but if there's one place retailing it, there are more...

http://www.rogersfoods.com.au/?c_id=5

Edited September 9, 2010 by Sebastian (log)

[Spring]

I ordered the santha from John a few months ago and am making my own sugar and maltitol free chocolate although from cocoa liquor not nibs. Still tweaking but am finally almost there. Ive made white, milk and dark, the milk takes about 25+ hours to feel smooth though, I wonder why when Kerrys takes 16?

I use low fat milk powder partly because of the rancidity issue and partly because of the low fat/calorie etc issue.

[justDeb]

The time it takes depends a lot on the ingredients, the amount and the pre-treatment, if any. As you can see from Kerry's pictures, she pre-ground the nibs, the sugar (and I believe the milk powder) in a Thermomix; that cuts down the microns significantly and makes things easier on the Santha. You didn't mention whether you are adding cocoa butter, but the addition of cocoa butter also assists in smoothing the particles. If you're just depending on the inherent cocoa butter, it's going to take a lot longer. Finally, the smaller the batch, the less time it takes. So, if your sugar substitute is a crystalline form, you might try putting it in the food processor for a minute to reduce the particle size; same for the milk powder, though it does break up pretty well on its own. Also, try adding melted cocoa butter to your formulation.

This is just based on my experience and Sebastian probably has even better advice.

[Spring]

thanks Deb, I pre grind the sweeteners and melt the cocoa butter, but your reply made me think that the extended refining time is probably due to the large amount in the machine

[Sebastian]

Deb - you did just fine 8-)

also, remember that the santha's are not precision machines. The stones used in each will vary in their porosity and clearances between the rollers and stators (the bottom). I.E. - not two machines are alike, and as such, it's quite difficult to compare times and particle sizes between two of them. They also appear to vary in rotational speed from unit to unit. Industrial machines are machined to very, very tight tolerances, allowing for specific comparisons to be made.

[Tri2Cook]

Diabetic friendly chocolates is not really an area I have any interest in pursuing as part of what I do. However, a good friend who is diabetic was told by their doctor that a small piece of dark chocolate occasionally was ok. The friend doesn't like dark chocolate and asked me if it was possible to make something that tastes more like milk chocolate while being diabetic friendly. I was honest and said I didn't know but I knew where to ask.

 

Macadamia nuts (and almonds but the friend doesn't like those) are apparently approved so I considered something more gianduja like by replacing a percentage of the sugar in the melanger with the nuts. I know there's been advances in sugar replacers as well but I have no knowledge in that area. Anyway, open to experimenting with any suggestions.

 

Edit: I suppose I should have mentioned that part of the difficulty for me with this one is, I have no idea what a doctor has in mind when they tell someone occasional "dark chocolate" in small amounts is ok. "Dark chocolate" is a pretty wide range.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Tri2Cook (log)

[pastrygirl]

1 hour ago, Tri2Cook said:

Edit: I suppose I should have mentioned that part of the difficulty for me with this one is, I have no idea what a doctor has in mind when they tell someone occasional "dark chocolate" in small amounts is ok. "Dark chocolate" is a pretty wide range.

 

I'd go with 70% or above.

 

Are you trying to avoid milk, or just sugar?

[Tri2Cook]

31 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

 

I'd go with 70% or above.

 

Are you trying to avoid milk, or just sugar?

 

I don't know, honestly. I assumed the sugar would be the primary issue since diabetic friendly milk chocolate exists but I've never actually looked into what goes in those chocolates.

 

I was picturing taking a formula for maybe a 40 - 45% milk chocolate, calculating the sugar added by the milk powder and then replacing enough actual sugar with ground macadamias to get the sugar level in line with a  70 - 80% chocolate and spinning it in the melanger but I have no scientific reason behind any of that. Also, no idea what that'll do texturally but that's easy enough to find out if the rest of it makes sense.

 

Edit: I was trying to see if I could do this without resorting to sugar substitutes but the friend never actually said using them was off the table.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Tri2Cook (log)

[Kerry Beal]

37 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

 

I don't know, honestly. I assumed the sugar would be the primary issue since diabetic friendly milk chocolate exists but I've never actually looked into what goes in those chocolates.

 

I was picturing taking a formula for maybe a 40 - 45% milk chocolate, calculating the sugar added by the milk powder and then replacing enough actual sugar with ground macadamias to get the sugar level in line with a  70 - 80% chocolate and spinning it in the melanger but I have no scientific reason behind any of that. Also, no idea what that'll do texturally but that's easy enough to find out if the rest of it makes sense.

 

Edit: I was trying to see if I could do this without resorting to sugar substitutes but the friend never actually said using them was off the table.

I feel your pain!

[Tri2Cook]

50 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

I feel your pain!

 

Fortunately for me, there's no urgency in this one. It's just one of my buddies I've been working with for the past 13+ years. He was recently moved into the diabetic category after a long period of adjusting his weight and eating habits still didn't do whatever they were looking for to his numbers. We're always swapping out things we make, he makes really good jerky. He asked if it was something I could do, I said I'd take a stab at it. So no harm, no foul if I can't make it happen. 😁

[pastrygirl]

I'd worry that the macadamia fat would soften everything too much.   Maybe more milk powder and cocoa butter in place of some sugar? 

 

I'm looking at a box of Felchlin 49% milk chocolate, its 31% cacao kernel so that means 18% added cocoa butter, and added sugars are about 35%, so that leaves 16% milk/cream powders.   What if you did like 35% cacao, 25% CB, 20% sugar, 20% milk? 

[beesknees]

Saw some notes above about caramelized milk powder.  We haven't found a good source for full fat milk powder so we use regular milk powder and caramelize it pretty deeply in the oven over the course of about an hour.  I really enjoy the flavor, adds some depth.

 

Also just experimented with using malted milk powder to make a 60% malted milk chocolate.  Oddly stayed slightly grainy even after processing in the melanger for an extra 24 hours but we'll see how it behaves when we mold into bars.  Probably should have dissolved into hot cocoa butter then strained into the melanger.  Next time!

[Tri2Cook]

4 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

I'd worry that the macadamia fat would soften everything too much.   Maybe more milk powder and cocoa butter in place of some sugar? 

 

I'm looking at a box of Felchlin 49% milk chocolate, its 31% cacao kernel so that means 18% added cocoa butter, and added sugars are about 35%, so that leaves 16% milk/cream powders.   What if you did like 35% cacao, 25% CB, 20% sugar, 20% milk? 

 

I assumed the fat from the nuts would effect the texture but if it could still be molded into bars, that wouldn't matter in this case. This is just a favor for a friend so there's not gonna be any complaints. 

 

That sounds pretty close to what I was thinking but with the nuts taking up some of the slack for the sugar but I think I'll try your version first. I was only focusing on the macadamias because they were mentioned, I'm not set on having them in there. Thanks!

[pastrygirl]

14 minutes ago, beesknees said:

Saw some notes above about caramelized milk powder.  We haven't found a good source for full fat milk powder so we use regular milk powder and caramelize it pretty deeply in the oven over the course of about an hour.  I really enjoy the flavor, adds some depth.

 

Yum!  A few companies are making browned butter milk chocolate, that's another way to get toasty milk flavors in there.

[beesknees]

1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:

 

Yum!  A few companies are making browned butter milk chocolate, that's another way to get toasty milk flavors in there.

I think I saw Chocolove or another big brand doing that recently.  Wonder how they do it.  I've tried browning butter and straining out the bits to add those into filling for the crunch and nuttiness.  Kinda mixed results.