Question on mint meltaways

[rajoress]

Hello all,

 

I am in the process of finalizing my menu of chocolates for Passover this year (Easter's the next day!) and want to make Greweling's mint meltaways. I love having mint after a big dinner and usually make peppermint patties from Greweling's fondant recipe but I can't in good conscience serve a chocolate with corn syrup at my mother's Passover table! 

 

I've never made the mint meltaways but love the look and assume the mouth feel must be wonderful. I have a jar of organic coconut oil that is solid. My question is - do you heat the solidified oil up to liquid and if so, any special temp or just cool it until cool but still liquid? (excuse me if this is in the directions, I'm at work planning my nights of chocolate making this week!) Also, has anyone made these with any other type of oil? My mom loves mint but not coconut so not sure if she would eat them...
Thanks for any help!

Ruth

[CatPoet]

Look for  white baking syrup  from Nordic sugar, it works similar to light corn syrup.  but wait is sugar from beets a no go even if it is chemical identical to cane sugar?

[Jim D.]

 

I've never made the mint meltaways but love the look and assume the mouth feel must be wonderful. I have a jar of organic coconut oil that is solid. My question is - do you heat the solidified oil up to liquid and if so, any special temp or just cool it until cool but still liquid? (excuse me if this is in the directions, I'm at work planning my nights of chocolate making this week!) Also, has anyone made these with any other type of oil? My mom loves mint but not coconut so not sure if she would eat them...

 

Recently I brought up the subject of the taste of coconut oil (there is one kind that tastes strongly of coconut and another that does not).  You might be interested in that discussion (especially replies 12 and 13).

[Kerry Beal]

If your chocolate is warm you can usually add the coconut oil still solid - the heat from the chocolate will melt the coconut oil.  The whole mixture then needs to be tempered - I believe that Greweling has you do it on a slab - but it becomes quite liquid and that can be challenging - so try doing it in a bowl over another bowl of cold water.  

 

You can get glucose made from tapioca - I don't begin to know if that would be kosher however.  

[rajoress]

Thanks for the help and suggestions! I found a modified recipe online at ecolechocolat that doesn't require the marble slab tempering so will try that to see if it works! Thanks also for pointing me towards the coconut fat discussion, I found that the jar I have is not 100% solid, in fact when you press it with your finger it does give away to semi-liquid.

Thanks again!

Ruth

[cmflick]

Thanks for the help and suggestions! I found a modified recipe online at ecolechocolat that doesn't require the marble slab tempering so will try that to see if it works! Thanks also for pointing me towards the coconut fat discussion, I found that the jar I have is not 100% solid, in fact when you press it with your finger it does give away to semi-liquid.

Thanks again!

Ruth

I've used the Greweling recipe that calls for tabling in the past, but stirred with the paddle at speed 3 in my KitchenAid.  Seemed to work fine.

[Jim D.]

I finally got around to trying meltaways.  I followed Greweling's instructions but was puzzled at the results.  After mixing the coconut oil and the melted chocolate, I expected some thickening, but there was absolutely none.  I tempered by stirring for a long time (there was no way I could keep the stuff on a marble slab), still no thickening.  So I heated it back up to an appropriate temperature and added 1% of Mycryo, stirred like mad, still only slight thickening.  The plan was to pipe this into shells, but I need to put "pipe" in quotation marks since I could have just poured it.  I refrigerated the mold, and after several hours, the meltaways looked better, and they came out of the mold (well, most of them).  But the mix left in the piping bag was still completely liquid.  I must have done something wrong--it's not a good sign when the only way a ganache is satisfactory is when it is refrigerated.  The taste and texture of the meltaways is good enough to make it worth pursuing to get this right.

 

Since then, I have done some more reading on eGullet and see that the initial very liquid state is not unusual, but other people seem to have success getting it to crystallize enough to cut on a guitar.  I should add that when I made the meltaways, I had not yet received my EZTemper machine, so that was not an option.  I would appreciate any guidance on where I went astray--or was it simply that I did not give the crystallizing enough time?

[Kerry Beal]

If you temper on a slab then agitation and cooling occurs. If you just stir you only get agitation.  Put your bowl over ice water and stir until it starts to thicken - at that point you can pour into a frame for cutting on guitar. It seems to benefit from a bit of time in the fridge after being poured into the frame.

[Jim D.]

Kerry,

Thanks for that advice.  I should add that by today (one day after making the meltaways) the texture in the piping bag is fine.  I'll try the ice water along with more patience--and the next time I will be able to use the EZTemper, which I saw (from the 2015 conference) makes a difference.

[keychris]

coconut oil (well, depending on the type you have) melts around 24C so will still be very fluid at temperatures you would expect chocolate to be setting

[p_lo]

I've made these and they turned out very well by following the directions as stated — which did not require any slab tempering. Simply seeding in a bowl worked just fine.

 

The coconut oil needs to be at a equal temperature to the tempered chocolate before they're mixed. The directions I have state to have the coconut oil at 85F, which is presumably what the tempered chocolate should be at as well, give or take a few degrees.

 

I didn't take notes, but I'm fairly certain mine solidified at room temp after a couple hours. They were made in winter so room temp was about ~68F, however I didn't make these in a kitchen that I'm either used to, nor was climate controlled. These were Greweling Mint Meltaways specifically. As Kerry stated, refrigeration will help them solidify for cutting.

 

The key seems to be correcting the ratio of coconut oil to chocolate. Looking at some different meltaway recipes, the amount of coconut oil used varies in relationship to the other oils being used in the recipe from chocolate or peanuts or whatever. The whole reason a meltaway 'works' is the inclusion of fat with a low melting point "melting" in the mouthfeel. So it should stand to reason that fixing the ratio of 'lower temp melting fats' to chocolate and other fats is necessary for creating a successful recipe.

[Celest]

I've been making the meltaways for about a year now, since I discovered Kerry Posting it on I believe ecolechocolat forums.  I also have an eztemper, which DOES make it easier.

 

I have made it both with the eztemper, as well as pre tempered chocolate.  I'd say wait until the mixture is under 30C before pouring into shelled molds or paper cups or a frame. I've never poured the mixture straight into a mold, I've always worried that they would never come out. They should set fairly quickly. Meaning if you put them into the fridge they should set in about 10 minutes. If left out they should set and be firm within 30 minutes, but that is individual portions, and not as a slab. I don't slab mine so I don't know how long that takes.

 

If your chocolate is NOT tempered properly, it will take forever to set, AND there will be a weird bumpy texture.

 

As far as my understanding goes, refined cocunut oil has no smell, and unrefined coconut oil has the smell. 

 

I use them both because of what I want them to do.

 

This is has been one of my favorite recipes to use because I can change it up depending on the kind of chocolate, kind of flavouring oil I use and if the coconut oil has a flavour or not.

 

Oh, and I prefer to use more mint oil than the recipe calls for.... it will also hid the coconut flavour too.

 

Oh, and it was because of this recipe that I bought the Grewelling book, figured it there were at least 1 more good recipe in it it would be worth purchasing it.....boy was I right!

 

Celest

 

[jimb0]

On 1/17/2021 at 3:54 PM, Celest said:

As far as my understanding goes, refined cocunut oil has no smell, and unrefined coconut oil has the smell. 

 

 

this is correct. i tend to keep both on hand mostly because i make our soaps and lotions.