Working with Swerve sweetener in chocolate?

[crisw]

I am trying to work on making some chocolates for my diabetic sister. As the sweetener, I used Swerve, an erythritol-based sweetener that supposedly behaves like sugar (and that my sister likes.) I added it to my standard milk chocolate recipe from Chocolate Alchemy- http://chocolatealchemy.com/recipes/dark-milk-chocolate-45 It came out of the melanger fine and set up OK. But, when I went to temper it, it would not melt! Even after an hour at 140F, it was about the consistency of peanut butter. 

 

Has anyone worked with Swerve and have any successful recipes? Or have any idea why it was so viscous?  The stuff is darned expensive, so I don't want to experiment too much. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Is there any water in it?

 

[Kerry Beal]

I assume you have made this recipe before with sugar instead of sweetener with good results.

 

Erythritol is not hygroscopic, oligosaccharides are. Lactose in milk sugar from the milk powder is hygroscopic. These may have contributed. Also how long did you melange it for? Once the particle size gets smaller it needs more cocoa butter to surround those extra particles.

 

Adding more cocoa butter can compensate for extra moisture so you might be able to rehabilitate this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[crisw]

There's no water in it, and I treated it like I would regular sugar and had it in a 120F oven for an hour or so before adding it to the melanger. I've made the same recipe before several times with sugar with good results. I had it in the melanger about 12 hours, I think. I was wondering if more cocoa butter would help. I'll give it a whirl- thanks so much!

[Tri2Cook]

4 hours ago, crisw said:

I was wondering if more cocoa butter would help.

More cocoa butter has solved almost every viscosity issue I've encountered. It's not the least expensive option but it generally works.