The Tiny Little Ganachery

Ever wondered what the percentage on the chocolate packaging was referring to or if white chocolate was really chocolate or why chocolate chips stay in chip form when you bake them?  I know I have. 

Today we are going to discuss the differences between the different chocolates and the different forms of chocolate, so you can have a better understanding of what type of chocolate you need to use for baking.

Let’s get started…

Chocolate

Chocolate according to Wikipedia is “a range of foods derived from cocoa (cacao), mixed with fat (e.g., cocoa butter) and finely powdered sugar to produce a solid confectionery”.  The different types of chocolate are classified based on how much pure chocolate (chocolate liquor) is in the mixture.  The name designations of chocolate are sometimes subjected to international government regulation and each government can have different standards.  For our purposes today, we will be talking about chocolate as regulated by the United States.

Now to understand how we get the different types of chocolate and what goes into chocolate we need to understand how the cacao bean gets processed into chocolate liquor, one of the main ingredients that differentiates chocolate.  In a previous post I wrote about the science of chocolate, which included how the bean gets processed into the chocolate liquor, so I will not get into it here.  If you need a refresher you can read my post The Sweet Science of Chocolate.  Basically, the beans are processed and liquefied into something called chocolate liquor (the non-alcoholic version).  Chocolate liquor is cocoa solids and the cocoa butter.  It is chocolate in its purest form.

Now we can start talking about percentages of chocolate that you see on the chocolate packaging labels.  The percentage refers to the amount of pure chocolate liquor in the chocolate mixture.  It is basically the percent of what is left after you add up the sugar, dairy, vanilla, emulsifiers, and other flavorings.  The FDA sets minimum percentages for the different types of chocolates.

Time to get into the specifics…

Unsweetened Chocolate

Unsweetened chocolate is completely chocolate liquor with no sugar added.  It is extremely bitter and not good for eating, so it is primarily used for cooking and baking.  It is used when a recipe is made with a lot of sugar.

Unsweetened cocoa powder is pulverized cocoa solids left after extracting all the cocoa butter.  Cocoa powder is used as chocolate in baking and for chocolate drinks.  There are two types of cocoa powder: natural cocoa powder created from the Broma process and Dutch process cocoa.  Natural cocoa is light brown and is used mainly for baking in recipes that call for baking soda since this powder doesn’t contain alkali.  Dutch process cocoa is processed with alkali to neutralize the acidity.  It is milder in taste and darker in color.  It is frequently used in chocolate drinks, such as hot chocolate, due its ease in mixing with liquids.

Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate, aka plain chocolate, is produced using a higher percentage of cocoa with all fat coming from cocoa butter and not dairy.  Dark chocolate is the European designation whereas bittersweet and semisweet is the United States designation.  Dark chocolate has a minimum of 35% cocoa liquor.  Semisweet usually has a little more sugar than bittersweet, but the designation is up to the manufacturer.  Very dark chocolate can be up to 80% cocoa liquor.  65% to 70% cocoa liquor is most common for baking and eating.  It is strong, but not overpowering.  The higher the percent of cocoa liquor, the more bitter and brittle the chocolate is.

Dark chocolate is the most versatile chocolate.  Semisweet chocolate chips are common for chocolate chip cookies.  Bittersweet and semisweet chocolate can be easily interchanged when baking.  Dark chocolate can have a very fruity taste, while others can be smoother.  This depends on sourcing of the cacao bean.  The darker the chocolate is, the more nutrients the chocolate has.

Milk Chocolate

Milk chocolate must contain 12% milk in the form of powdered, liquid or condensed and a minimum of 10% chocolate liquor.  Some higher quality milk chocolates can contain up to 30 to 40% chocolate liquor.  The rest is comprised of sugar, emulsifiers, and sometimes flavorings.  Milk chocolate has a milder flavoring than dark chocolate.

Milk chocolate was invented by a Swiss confectioner, Daniel Peter, in 1875.  He mixed chocolate liquor with condensed milk.  Fun fact, condensed milk was invented by Henri Nestlé who was Daniel’s neighbor.  The Hershey Company located in Hershey, Pennsylvania is the largest producer in the United States and Cadbury is the leading brand of milk chocolate in the United Kingdom.

Milk chocolate has a softer texture and melts easier than dark chocolate due to the added dairy.  It is also sweeter and less bitter than dark chocolate.  Because it melts easier and is sweeter, milk chocolate is a great eating chocolate.  It can be used in baking, but its sweetness can cause an already sweet dessert to become too sweet.  I generally use milk chocolate to dip things into such as truffles or pretzels.

White Chocolate

The age-old question is if white chocolate is really chocolate.  The answer is no.  Technically and legally white chocolate is not chocolate because it contains no cocoa solids.  White chocolate is pure cocoa butter, dairy, and sugar.  According to the FDA white chocolate has a minimum of 20% cocoa butter and 14% milk, cream or milk solids.  Often vanilla is added to help sweeten the chocolate along with sugar.  White chocolate is pale ivory in color and lacks the fruity and bitter taste that chocolate with cocoa solids have.  It is usually sweet and creamy.

Compound Chocolate

Compound chocolate, more commonly known as candy melts or chocolate-flavored coating, is chocolate with the cocoa butter replaced by vegetable fat.  This chocolate melts easy and is easy to work with since it doesn’t need to be tempered.  Compound chocolate is usually used for dipping for decorating and comes in a wide variety of colors and flavors.  It is most commonly found in the baking section of craft stores.

Chocolate Chips

Chocolate chips are bite size morsels of chocolate about 0.39 inches in diameter.  They are made with less cocoa butter than regular chocolate and contain additives to retain their shape when heated.  Originally chocolate chips were semisweet, but now come in different flavors such as mint and butterscotch.  They can be used in a wide variety of recipes, but most commonly used in the chocolate chip cookie.

According to Wikipedia, “Chocolate chips were created with the invention of chocolate chip cookies in 1937 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe.  (The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.) The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement in 1939 with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars. In 1941, Nestlé and at least one of its competitors started selling the chocolate in “chip” (or “morsel”) form”.

Modeling Chocolate

Modeling chocolate is a chocolate paste made by melting chocolate and mixing it with corn syrup, glucose syrup, or golden syrup.  Modeling chocolate is primarily used to make decorations for cakes and pastries that can’t be done with buttercream or fondant.  Modeling chocolate can be dark, milk or white.

 

Now that you have a better understanding of the different types of chocolate, you can be better educated when making chocolate choices for your recipes.  Happy baking!

 

References

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/types-of-chocolate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modeling_chocolate

https://www.bhg.com/recipes/desserts/chocolate/chocolate-types-selection-storage/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_chip

Makes about 50 truffles

February 16 is a special day in my family.  Why you ask?  Well that day is my dad’s birthday.  This year wasn’t just another birthday though, it was a special one.  February 16, 2019 my dad turned 65.  Yep one of those milestone ages.

Normally I get my dad a gift card from his favorite store for his birthdays, but I wanted to do something special this year.  I decided to send my dad a box with a few diy gifts.  Of course, as a chocolatier I had to bake him something.  Cakes aren’t my specialty, so I wanted to try something different.

This year I sent my dad Happy Birthday Cake Truffles.  They are very easy to make and festive for the occasion.  Oh, and they are great for all ages.

It’s time to forget about the cake and make these birthday bite size treats!

Ingredients:

·      1 box Funfetti cake mix (ok to use yellow or white cake and sprinkles as an alternative)

·      Vegetable oil and eggs as directed on the cake mix box

·      1 container of funfetti icing (ok to use white icing as an alternative)

·      36 oz white chocolate chips (about 3- 12 oz packages)

·      4.5 tablespoons vegetable shortening

Other Supplies:

·      Parchment paper/wax paper

·      9 x 9 cake pan (or similar)

·      Microwave safe bowl

·      Truffle dipper or spoon

·      Sprinkles of your choosing for decorating

 

Directions:

1.    Mix and bake the cake as directed on the box.  If you are using plain yellow or white cake, mix a couple of handfuls of sprinkles in the batter before baking.  Your cake doesn’t have to be pretty.  You will be mashing it up later.

2.    Let the cake cool.

3.     Once the cake is cool, crumble the cake in a large bowl and mix with the container of icing until well combined.

4.    Put the cake mixture in the freezer and let set for a couple of hours.  You just want the mixture to get hard.

5.    After the mixture is done chilling, roll 1-inch balls of cake mixture.  This will be the inside of your truffles.

6.    Melt the white chocolate chips and shortening together in the microwave.  Melt the chocolate for one minute and then mix.  If your chocolate needs more melting time, melt in 20 second bursts and mix after each melting time.  Be cautious not to over melt because you can burn the chocolate and it will get clumpy.  Also, the chips may not look melted when you first take the out of the microwave, but as you mix and melt they will become more viscous.  As you mix, it is ok to have a few small clumps of unmelted chocolate in your melted chocolate.  You can leave it as is or strain your chocolate.  You can melt all 36 ounces at once or you can melt 12 ounces at a time.  You can use about 1.5 tablespoons of shortening for each 12 ounces of chocolate.

7.    Dip your cake balls in the white chocolate with a spoon or truffle dipper and let them set on parchment/wax paper.

8.    If you want to decorate the truffles, make sure you decorate them right away, so the sprinkles will stick.

9.    Let the truffles set the remainder of the way until hard.  You can put them in the refrigerator to help with this process.

Note:  Keep truffles in the refrigerator until ready to serve.  They have tendency to expand when warming and could crack the chocolate shell.

You have now created an easy, alternative to the traditional birthday cake.  Happy celebrating and enjoy!

Makes about 25 bites

The new year… a time we make yearly goals and try to stick with them.  One goal that is my favorite to use every year is I want to lose weight and improve my overall fitness.  So that means clean up my nutrition, get to the gym more often and cut out those sweets.

Do I really have to cut out the sweets?  I have a sweet tooth and that might be hard. 

I was talking with my trainer at the gym and she said I don’t necessarily have to cut out the sweets, just eat them in moderation.  She said if I was going to eat anything, dark chocolate would be the best.

Well that works for me… I don’t discriminate when it comes to chocolate. 

I came home from the gym and decided to make my own healthier treat that I could eat in moderation and not veer off my path to better fitness and weight loss so early in the year.  I decided to make Dark Chocolate Cherry Almond Bites.  All three ingredients have antioxidant properties plus other good nutritional value and no extra sugar except what is in each ingredient.  Plus, they are very easy to make.

I hope this can satisfy your sweet cravings like it did mine.  Let’s get melting…

Ingredients:

·      12 oz dark chocolate chips

·      1 cup roasted and unsalted almonds

·      1 cup dried cherries

·      1.5 tablespoons vegetable shortening

Other Supplies:

·      Parchment paper/wax paper

·      1 tablespoon scoop or spoon

·      Microwave safe bowl

 

Directions:

1.    Melt the chocolate chips and shortening together in the microwave.  Melt the chocolate for one minute and then mix.  If your chocolate needs more melting time, melt in 20 second bursts and mix after each melting time.  Be cautious not to over melt because you can burn the chocolate and it will get clumpy.  Also, the chips may not look melted when you first take the out of the microwave, but as you mix and melt they will become more viscous.  As you mix, it is ok to have a few small clumps of unmelted chocolate in your melted chocolate.  You can leave it as is or strain your chocolate.

 

2.    Once the chocolate is melted, mix the cherries and almonds with the melted chocolate until everything so covered.

 

 

3.    Use the 1 tablespoon scoop to scoop the mixture and place on the parchment/wax paper.  If you want larger bites just use a larger scoop.

 

4.    Let the bites cool and harden.

 

You have now created an easy, fast, fitness trainer approved snack.  Enjoy!

As we discussed in our Sweet Science of Chocolate post, in order avoid fat and sugar bloom and to get the right chocolate crystallization for the perfect properties, you need to temper the chocolate.  Tempering is basically the melting and cooling of chocolate to a certain temperature to achieve the right crystallization.  Below are two videos I found on YouTube that explain the tempering process and how to easily temper chocolate from your own home.  The first video shows and explains how temper chocolate in the microwave and the second video shows and explains how to temper chocolate over the stove.

Please enjoy and happy learning…

A shout out to America’s Test Kitchen for this great video on tempering chocolate.  Please visit their YouTube page for more cooking and baking How To’s.

Another shout out to Monarch Media for this informative video.  Please visit their YouTube page for more eLearning and mLearning videos.

This Sunday is the biggest game of the year, the Superbowl. Superbowl Sunday is a time where friends and family can get together and cheer for the same team or against each other. For some people, it is an excuse to eat junk food and see all the new commercials. Either way, Superbowl usually involves lots of food and drink.

Since I am a baker, I usually bring something baked to my Superbowl parties I am invited to. My go to treat I bring incorporates a very popular snack food that is definitely served at Superbowl parties. It is the potato chip. That is right… you heard me… this treat involves baking with potato chips.

My go to treat is the dark chocolate potato chip brookie. What is a brookie you ask? A brookie is a combination of a brownie and cookie in one treat. Usually the brownie is on the bottom and cookie on top. This treat incorporates a dark chocolate brownie, potato chip cookie, and dark chocolate drizzle on top.

GO TEAM! Let’s start baking…

Brownie Ingredients:

• 1- 10 to 12 oz package of dark chocolate chips                          
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup of unsalted butter cut into pieces
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• ¾ cup of unbleached all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon of salt

Cookie Ingredients:

• ½ cup of unsalted butter
• ¼ cup of granulated sugar
• ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of unbleached all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup of crushed potato chips

Other Supplies:
• 9 x 12 pan or 8×8 square pan
• 2 mixing bowls and spoons
• Parchment paper or vegetable shortening
• Small sauce pan
• ½ cup of dark chocolate chips for decorating

Brownie Directions:
1. Melt chocolate chips, butter, sugar, and water in a sauce pan on low heat. Keep mixing so the chocolate doesn’t burn. You are done melting when the chocolate chips and butter are completely melted.

2. In the mean time mix flour, salt, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl until combined.

3. Once chocolate mixture is completely melted, combine chocolate mixture and flour mixture and mix thoroughly.

4. Add eggs to batter and mix after each addition.

5. Set batter aside and work on making the cookie dough.

Cookie Directions:
1. Soften butter in microwave for 30 seconds. It should be soft and partially melted.

2. Mix butter and sugar in a small bowl until mixture is well combined and fluffy.

3. Add vanilla extract, flour, and crushed potato chips. Mix until well combined.

Now it is time to assemble the brookie.
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease cake pan with shortening or use parchment paper to line cake pan.

2. Pour the brownie batter in cake pan and spread to cover pan evenly.

3. Place cookie dough on top of brownie batter in a thin layer. It can cover the entire brownie, or you can place randomly so you have some brownie showing through.

4. Bake brookies for 30 minutes at 325°F or until golden brown on top and when a toothpick is inserted into brownie it comes out clean.

5. Melt ½ cup of chocolate chips in microwave for 30 sections. Mix and drizzle on top of brookie.

6. Let brookie cool.