Chocolate and confectionery: Where to start?

[Quesmoy]

I got a book "Making Artisan Chocolates "by Andrew Garrison Shotts from Barnes & Noble.com, and it was really inexpensive (I bought the e-book) I think it was about $13.50. It seems to have some pretty good recipes, and there is one for a triple espresso vanilla ganache. Of course have not been able to try these out yet, I have to wait to get some chocolate. I'm going out of town next week, and I have found a candy supply store where I'm going that carries Callebaut chocolate starting at $6.80 a pound. I would purchase from their website, but it is just too hot right now. If you would like the website let me know.

[jrshaul]

I'm not entirely sure how chocolate is measured, but it seems that the chocolate I've been buying from Trader Joe's has a high proportion of cocoa solids to cocoa butter. While this gives a very pleasant flavor, it's so potent that it tends to overcome whatever you put in it. Should I just shell out for Callebaut, or can I start adding cocoa butter and/or sugar to tweak the proportions?

[pastrygirl]

I'm not entirely sure how chocolate is measured, but it seems that the chocolate I've been buying from Trader Joe's has a high proportion of cocoa solids to cocoa butter. While this gives a very pleasant flavor, it's so potent that it tends to overcome whatever you put in it. Should I just shell out for Callebaut, or can I start adding cocoa butter and/or sugar to tweak the proportions?

The percentage on the package is the total amount of cocoa solids plus cocoa butter. The rest is mostly sugar, plus a little lecithin and vanilla. 70% can mean 40% solids and 30% fat or 50% solids and 20% fat. Against the same 30% sugar, those two 70%s will taste very different.

Not many manufacturers list the cocoa butter content separately. Callebaut has many many formulations and uses a 1 to 5 drop system to indicate the fluidity of each formulation. 3 or 4 is recommended for dipping and molding, 5 may be too fluid to get a thick enough shell. Anything sold as couverture should have 30% cocoa butter or more. The working temp of your chocolate and degree of precrystalization will also affect fluidity.

If you have a chocolate whose flavor you like but that is too viscous, you certainly may add cocoa butter to thin it down. I would not add sugar, because what sugar would you add? I suppose you could use powdered sugar, as the particles are too fine to detect and it is used in Greweling's gianduja recipes, but I haven't tried that with straight chocolate. You definitely do not want to add granulated sugar, because it will not dissolve in the cocoa butter but will remain gritty. To adjust sweetness, I would find a different chocolate or do a blend of sweeter and darker until I was happy.

Chocolate is one of those things you can work with for years and still keep learning and exploring. Have fun and be sure to post some pics when you make something that delights you.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm not entirely sure how chocolate is measured, but it seems that the chocolate I've been buying from Trader Joe's has a high proportion of cocoa solids to cocoa butter. While this gives a very pleasant flavor, it's so potent that it tends to overcome whatever you put in it. Should I just shell out for Callebaut, or can I start adding cocoa butter and/or sugar to tweak the proportions?

I used to use the Trader Joe's chocolate to temper and found it worked OK for molding and such - but if the flavour doesn't suit - I'd probably find another.

[Darienne]

I'm not entirely sure how chocolate is measured, but it seems that the chocolate I've been buying from Trader Joe's has a high proportion of cocoa solids to cocoa butter. While this gives a very pleasant flavor, it's so potent that it tends to overcome whatever you put in it. Should I just shell out for Callebaut, or can I start adding cocoa butter and/or sugar to tweak the proportions?

The percentage on the package is the total amount of cocoa solids plus cocoa butter. The rest is mostly sugar, plus a little lecithin and vanilla. 70% can mean 40% solids and 30% fat or 50% solids and 20% fat. Against the same 30% sugar, those two 70%s will taste very different.

Not many manufacturers list the cocoa butter content separately. Callebaut has many many formulations and uses a 1 to 5 drop system to indicate the fluidity of each formulation. 3 or 4 is recommended for dipping and molding, 5 may be too fluid to get a thick enough shell. Anything sold as couverture should have 30% cocoa butter or more. The working temp of your chocolate and degree of precrystalization will also affect fluidity.

If you have a chocolate whose flavor you like but that is too viscous, you certainly may add cocoa butter to thin it down. I would not add sugar, because what sugar would you add? I suppose you could use powdered sugar, as the particles are too fine to detect and it is used in Greweling's gianduja recipes, but I haven't tried that with straight chocolate. You definitely do not want to add granulated sugar, because it will not dissolve in the cocoa butter but will remain gritty. To adjust sweetness, I would find a different chocolate or do a blend of sweeter and darker until I was happy.

Chocolate is one of those things you can work with for years and still keep learning and exploring. Have fun and be sure to post some pics when you make something that delights you.

And so I did learn something additional from your post. Why you are rightfully called the Chocolate Doctor. Thanks.

[Darienne]

My mistake. It was Pastrygirl who posted that very useful reply. Sorry Pastrygirl. I do apologize for getting your names mixed up.

As for your comments on adding powdered sugar to chocolate...I was just making some lime and jalapeno ice cream and decided that I had cut down too far on the sugar content and this was after the mixture had been cooked and was cooling. I thought about confectioner's sugar and then realized that I could pulverize some plain granulated sugar and it worked perfectly.

Doesn't answer the chocolate question but it's one more bit of learning for me.

[jrshaul]

After doing some reading, I've found that Trader Joes' chocolate is manufactured by Callebaut. I suspect it's a cost-reduced formulation of some sort, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what it is. I'd really like to stick with Trader Joe's, especially given the 90-mile drive to the nearest distributor of industrial chocolate, and if blending the various varieties of chocolate (bittersweet, dark, extra dark, and chocolate chips) can give me the desired proportions it would save me a lot of time and money.

Edited August 7, 2011 by jrshaul (log)

[pastrygirl]

If you have a natural foods store or any store with a large bulk section, you can often find Callebaut or Guittard in irregular chunks from the 11kg blocks. Guittard is generally not considered quite as high quality as Callebaut, but it would be worth checking those bulk bins for more chocolate options beyond TJ's.

[pastrygirl]

My mistake. It was Pastrygirl who posted that very useful reply. Sorry Pastrygirl. I do apologize for getting your names mixed up.

It is an honor to be confused with Kerry Beal!

I think it would be safer to add superfine sugar to ice cream base because there is some water content to dissolve the sugar. No water in tempered chocolate, so you'd have to make sure that sugar is really really fine, fine enough to not be detectable on the tongue in a dry state.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm not entirely sure how chocolate is measured, but it seems that the chocolate I've been buying from Trader Joe's has a high proportion of cocoa solids to cocoa butter. While this gives a very pleasant flavor, it's so potent that it tends to overcome whatever you put in it. Should I just shell out for Callebaut, or can I start adding cocoa butter and/or sugar to tweak the proportions?

The percentage on the package is the total amount of cocoa solids plus cocoa butter. The rest is mostly sugar, plus a little lecithin and vanilla. 70% can mean 40% solids and 30% fat or 50% solids and 20% fat. Against the same 30% sugar, those two 70%s will taste very different.

Not many manufacturers list the cocoa butter content separately. Callebaut has many many formulations and uses a 1 to 5 drop system to indicate the fluidity of each formulation. 3 or 4 is recommended for dipping and molding, 5 may be too fluid to get a thick enough shell. Anything sold as couverture should have 30% cocoa butter or more. The working temp of your chocolate and degree of precrystalization will also affect fluidity.

If you have a chocolate whose flavor you like but that is too viscous, you certainly may add cocoa butter to thin it down. I would not add sugar, because what sugar would you add? I suppose you could use powdered sugar, as the particles are too fine to detect and it is used in Greweling's gianduja recipes, but I haven't tried that with straight chocolate. You definitely do not want to add granulated sugar, because it will not dissolve in the cocoa butter but will remain gritty. To adjust sweetness, I would find a different chocolate or do a blend of sweeter and darker until I was happy.

Chocolate is one of those things you can work with for years and still keep learning and exploring. Have fun and be sure to post some pics when you make something that delights you.

And so I did learn something additional from your post. Why you are rightfully called the Chocolate Doctor. Thanks.

But Darienne - that's not my post!

[Kerry Beal]

My mistake. It was Pastrygirl who posted that very useful reply. Sorry Pastrygirl. I do apologize for getting your names mixed up.

It is an honor to be confused with Kerry Beal!

I think it would be safer to add superfine sugar to ice cream base because there is some water content to dissolve the sugar. No water in tempered chocolate, so you'd have to make sure that sugar is really really fine, fine enough to not be detectable on the tongue in a dry state.

Oops - missed this.

[jrshaul]

My mistake. It was Pastrygirl who posted that very useful reply. Sorry Pastrygirl. I do apologize for getting your names mixed up.

It is an honor to be confused with Kerry Beal!

I think it would be safer to add superfine sugar to ice cream base because there is some water content to dissolve the sugar. No water in tempered chocolate, so you'd have to make sure that sugar is really really fine, fine enough to not be detectable on the tongue in a dry state.

From what I understand, Trader Joe's chocolate chips are Callebaut chocolate with an enormous amount of sugar. Sugar may not mix with chocolate, but heavily sweetened chocolate chips should.

[pastrygirl]

From what I understand, Trader Joe's chocolate chips are Callebaut chocolate with an enormous amount of sugar. Sugar may not mix with chocolate, but heavily sweetened chocolate chips should.

Yes, but chocolate chips are not couverture. Chips formulated for being baked into cookies have more emulsifiers and less fat so they hold their shape. They may be suitable for ganache centers, but not so much for dipping and molding. The Callebaut website has an area with several downloads of useful product information: http://www.callebaut.com/usen/331 and the valrhona website has good info too.

I don't know where you are, but if you are convenient to TJ's, you can't be too far from civilization, so there must be more options. For example, if you were near Seattle, I'd send you to the Chocolate man, who sells chocolate out of his garage, or PFI, which is an import store that happens to carry full size blocks and chunks of Callebaut for not much above wholesale, or the bulk section at a wide array of markets... I feel like it is a whole lot easier to find sources for a couverture that is ready to use than to try to re-engineer eating bars, chips, and cocoa butter into something usable. But maybe that is easy for me to say, living where I already know of so many options.

Edited August 7, 2011 by pastrygirl (log)

[jrshaul]

In a "what the heck" moment, I mixed equal parts Trader Joes' dark (~53%) and extra dark (~70%) chocolates. Instead of heating to 110+ and seeding, I chopped them very fine and heated them in the microwave until just barely melted. The end result was lovely and shiny at room temperature, though I'm curious as to how small the margin is between the melting point of chocolate and the point of dis-tempering.

I've also acquired some el-cheapo Wilton chocolate molds. These are of the extremely thin variety - only a fraction of a millimeter - and appear to be made of clear polycarbonate. They're obviously not really ideal for making candy shells, but I'm at a loss as to options short of a $30 polycarbonate professional mold. Perhaps a HDPE paint palette with hemispherical indentations would work?

On a semi-related note, has anyone combined white chocolate and dark chocolate to form a "mild" chocolate without the dairy flavor of milk chocolate? Also, does anyone know an inexpensive source of white chocolate suitable for thin shells?

[pastrygirl]

On a semi-related note, has anyone combined white chocolate and dark chocolate to form a "mild" chocolate without the dairy flavor of milk chocolate? Also, does anyone know an inexpensive source of white chocolate suitable for thin shells?

You do realize that white chocolate is comprised of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk powder, right? Not sure how you'd avoid dairy flavors with that mix.

[jrshaul]

On a semi-related note, has anyone combined white chocolate and dark chocolate to form a "mild" chocolate without the dairy flavor of milk chocolate? Also, does anyone know an inexpensive source of white chocolate suitable for thin shells?

You do realize that white chocolate is comprised of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk powder, right? Not sure how you'd avoid dairy flavors with that mix.

I wasn't. I was under the impression that coverture white chocolate as just cocoa butter, sugar, and emulsifiers; apparently, this is not the case. Can anyone suggest a cheap brand suitable for mucking about in the kitchen? It doesn't have to taste perfect - I'm still at the "make mistakes and learn from them" stage of chocolate making. Whole Foods does carry Callebaut by the pound, but the formula isn't labelled and at twice the price I figure I'll stick with TJ's.

Alternately, anyone know a good wholesaler in Madison? Heck, Milwaukee's not such a drive....