Substitututing 57% chocolate with 76%?

[Yoda]

Hello,

 

I'm mostly a lurker on this forum (reading mostly), trying to learn as much as I can while being a hobby baker. I've mostly been making chocolate bonbons, but have never made a cake before.

 

I would like to make this lovely cake by one of my favourite pastry chefs - Chef Hanbit Cho.

 

I would kindly ask you for help as I really would love to make this cake for my mother's birthday, which is coming up next week, and I have a few questions.

Chef Hanbit explained a lot in the video, but I still am not sure whether I can make this cake (and achieve complementary taste with substituted chocolate).

 

Chef used Callebout 2815, which is 57% cocoa solids and, from the description on Callebout site, the taste is supposed to be a bit sweet.

 

I atm have about less than a kg of Cacao Barry's Equateur dark chocolate which has 76% cocoa solids and is on the bitter side.

It also has around 44% fat and is high fluidity. 

Firstly- is this chocolate appropriate for making whipped ganache?

Secondly - do ypu think the high cocoa content will still be complementary with amarena cherries?

If not, is there a way I can "correct" the taste of my chocolate to get the right flavour (by adding sugar maybe?)?

 

From other chocolates I only have Zephyr (which is white chocolate and totaly useless in this case probably) and Ghana by Cacao Barry which has 40% cocoa solids milk chocolate (not sure of I can mix the two with one being dark and other being milk chocolate)

 

The other question I have, and please don't hold it against me for going slightly off topic, is the recipe is meant for 15x7 cm round cake pan, I have two 20x6 cm round cake pans.

I've calculated the amount to be multiplied by 1,5 to fit one of my 20 cm pans. Would it be an option to use both pans to make slightly more batter, filling, etc. and make higher genoise cakes or would one pan of size 20x6 cm suffice?  (Seems a bit low for 3 layers with 20 cm diameter).

 

I would be very grateful for your advice as I really would like to make a homemade cake for my mom.

 

Thank you!

 

Edited for typos

Edited April 10 by Yoda
Typing mistakes (log)

[Kerry Beal]

I must confess when I make things - I use the chocolate that I have. 2815 is more viscous than the standard 815 which contains more cocoa butter. 811 is sweeter - I like 815 more. 

 

Whipped ganache will be fine with that chocolate - and the amarena cherries are great with dark chocolate of any cocoa content IMHO.

 

I'll leave the pan size question to the cake folks who have a much better idea of those things. 

[Yoda]

18 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

I must confess when I make things - I use the chocolate that I have.

That's exactly why I wanted to use the 76% one instead of buying a new one

 

I also thought the taste of it was going to go well with the cherries, but really wasn't sure if the fluidity makes a difference when making the ganacheganamostly used this chocolate to make shells for bonbons.

 

I made a trial genoise today, my first one ever, and it wasn't the greatest success- the taste was really prevalent in honey, so I'm hesitant of making it as I'm not sure it would go well with chocolate ganache and cherries? You can't taste chocolate/cacao at all in it  I wonder if the honey I used (chesnut) was maybe too strong. I could already smell only honey while it was baking 

[Kerry Beal]

4 hours ago, Yoda said:

That's exactly why I wanted to use the 76% one instead of buying a new one

 

I also thought the taste of it was going to go well with the cherries, but really wasn't sure if the fluidity makes a difference when making the ganacheganamostly used this chocolate to make shells for bonbons.

 

I made a trial genoise today, my first one ever, and it wasn't the greatest success- the taste was really prevalent in honey, so I'm hesitant of making it as I'm not sure it would go well with chocolate ganache and cherries? You can't taste chocolate/cacao at all in it  I wonder if the honey I used (chesnut) was maybe too strong. I could already smell only honey while it was baking 

Chestnut honey is pretty assertive!

[Yoda]

7 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Chestnut honey is pretty assertive!

Yes, oopsi :) But it was the only honey I had at hand. And I really didn't think the small amount would take over the cocoa flavour x) the kitchen, while baking, smelled like I was making gingerbread lol