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Caramel for chocolate filling


Chmekas

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Dears,

I am about to start experimenting on combining caramel and chocolate for our new product.

I was wondering if somebody had experience with creating shelf stable caramel with a deep flavor? Should we go 'dry method' direction? Does it have enough deepness when all the richness of dairy is abscent? If we exclude dairy, what we have is caramelized sugar only..

Do you think that the addition of clarified butter/butteroil/ghee could make a difference or it won't work because of the abscent proteins?

Valhrona has a milk chocolate 'Caramelia', with the following ingredients : sugar, cocoa butter, caramel (skimmed milk, whey, sugar, butter, flavoring), whole milk powder, cocoa beans, emulsifier (soya lecithin). I wonder how they did it shelf stable..? Maybe it's milk product powders they use?

Would be grateful for any insights!

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Chocolate mfrs who go for a caramalized milk chocolate are doing it through one of two ways:

1) a crumb process (proprietary process(es) that combine milk, sugar, sometimes liquor, and often other ingredients. the goal here is to get the milk proteins and the reducing sugars to react, and do so in a way that's storable and transportable and suitable for use in chocolate.

2) the second is not that different - there are a couple producers of dried milk powder out there - most are spray dried, but there are some roller dryers as well. they'll do much the same thing - combine reducing sugars with their liquid milk stream with the intent of getting them to react during the drying process.

Both approaches can work wonderfully. Both can be very expensive, which is why more people don't do it.

Most people in the western world (ie the world that consumes chocolate) prefer 'modern' caramel flavor profiles as opposed to the more purist classical caramel (ie no dairy) flavor profiles. This is a generalization of course, and not true for everyone, just general demographics.

If you're looking to make your own caramel and combine it into the chocolate, your biggest challenge will be that the moisture of the caramel will wreak havoc with your chocolate viscosity and potentially water activity (important because higher Aw can lead to micro issues). Viscosity will be your barrier before Aw is most likely.

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Sebastian,

thank you for the detailed explanation - it is very valuable to understand the caramelization process used in the bigger manufacturing. So in this case the mill powder producer is pre-creating the caramelization for the chocolate manufacturer, is that correct?

Due to our capacities we can only move 'create our own caramelization' direction only. So I am starting to investigate a little bit. You are totally right about the moisture - so that is why I started a discussion in the first place: is it possible to create rich caramel flavor while keeping the very low moisture level.

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Valhrona has a milk chocolate 'Caramelia', with the following ingredients : sugar, cocoa butter, caramel (skimmed milk, whey, sugar, butter, flavoring), whole milk powder, cocoa beans, emulsifier (soya lecithin). I wonder how they did it shelf stable..? Maybe it's milk product powders they use?

The milk powders listed for that candy are in the milk chocolate, not the caramel inside. But...what is the candy your trying to achieve? Is it a caramel bar dipped into chocolate? Or a chocolate bar with a liquid caramel center? What are you going for and how will it be put together? I dont see why creating a rich caramel flavor with a low moisture level is problematic, or there is probably something I'm missing here, ignore me if what I said was irrelevant.

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It can be done; however it will be very easy to denature your milk proteins and may impact your sugars glass transition state (depending on the formulation), which may result in a really good tasting product that's increased it's viscosity quite a bit, or it may also end up getting very hard, granular 'bits' in it that you'll have a tough time processing out.

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Here in south Florida, we have a dried whole milk product called Klim. It says it has a 35 % butter fat content, iirc, and is extremely rich. I used to keep it in the house, along with powdered skim milk, to mix together, for cooking. (Regular fridge milk would spoil before I used it up.) Maybe if you could toast that on the stove top or in the oven, you could get the creamy dairy and the inherent sugars both? This is totally off the top of my head, you understand. I'd try it myself, but I don't have a kitchen right now, much less any Klim..

"Commit random acts of senseless kindness"

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