Rose water in chocolate bark

[AKS613]

Can you add this without the chocolate seizing? I want to do a chocolate apricot almond rose bark and my fear is in adding the rose water. If it is OK, when in the tempering process should I add it? THANKS IN ADVANCE!! 

[gfron1]

you can work water into chocolate in the right proportions for ganache, but you'll lose that rose flavor so fast that its not worth it IMO. Consider using a rose oil or candied roses for bark. I think candied rose petal is the way to go since you're going to have things in the bark anyway.

Edited November 6, 2014 by gfron1 (log)

[AKS613]

Thanks so much for your quick reply. When you say oil, do you mean extract? Can I use an extract?

[gfron1]

no, most extracts are water based. you want an essential oil that's food soluable. That said, many of us have found rose to be too perfumey to use in chocolate. I still think the candied petals are the way to go.

[AKS613]

Thanks so much. I've been doing more research and it seems almost impossible to find organic roses where I live, so making candied is kind of impossible. I looked into oils and found them on LORANN. I thought about 1/8 tsp to 1 lb chocolate, but if that's even too much I might have to rethink this. UGH! Thanks.

[gfron1]

you can buy candied petals. In fact, Fresh Origins I know makes them. Just poke around

[AKS613]

Wow. Thanks so much!

[Kerry Beal]

Rose oil (aka rose otto) is outrageously expensive.  You would dilute it about 1 in 100 in some sort of neutral oil - and add a drop or two.  

 

Shops that sell indian food and spices will often sell packages of dried rose petals.

 

I often use the candied petals either from Fresh Origins or from Albert Uster.  I'll add a couple of drops of diluted rose otto to the chocolate and sprinkle the candied petal bits on the top of a bark or the back of a bar. 

[Jim D.]

To the OP:  If you have Andrew Shotts's Making Artisan Chocolates, he has a recipe that he calls "Red Rose," which calls for adding raspberry purée to dark chocolate, plus "2 to 4 drops culinary-grade rose petal oil or rose water."  I've made it and it's delicious.  I used rose water.  Of course I was adding it to a chocolate ganache after the emulsion has been achieved.  I don't what might happen if you added it to plain chocolate (it's possible, of course, as gfron1 wrote, to make a water ganache), but you might want to look for the oil to be safe.  I did find that the rose water comes through even dark chocolate; it adds a mysterious taste that most people can't readily identify.

[AKS613]

Thanks so much. I really appreciate the replies.