Chocolate - the tree, the texture, the recipes.
Chocolate recipes.
Je'oan D'ark Limoncello Truffles.
Chocolate Diets: Women's Stress Buster and other Diet recommendations.
Chocolate History.
Chocolate science: biology, chemistry, and psychology.
Glossy chocolate glossary.
Rosenblum on chocolate.
Alice Medrich on chocolate.
Fran Bigelow on chocolate.
Chocolate Taste Tests:
Chocolate recipes.
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"No matter where you go, there you are."
|
| Death by Chocolate: The Last Word on a Consuming Passion
by Marcel Desaulniers (Author), Michael Grand (Photographer)
Try Dark Chocolate and Pumpkin Cheesecake.
Or Caramel Banana Chocolate Chip Ice Cream.
Or Chocolate Dementia.
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More super chocolate recipes.
Chocolate Diets: Women's Stress Buster and other Diet recommendations.
The Women's Stress-Buster Diet.
[Taken from an e-mail that circulated a few years ago. Author, Ms. Anon.]
This is a specially formulated diet designed to help women cope with the
stress that builds up during the day.
It is hoped that many people will read this web page and that I will therefore lose those
"last 10 pounds".
BREAKFAST
1 grapefruit
1 slice whole-wheat toast
1 cup skim milk
LUNCH
small portion lean, steamed chicken with a cup of spinach
1 cup herbal tea
1 Hershey kiss
AFTERNOON TEA
the rest of the kisses in the bag
tub of Hagen Daas ice cream with chocolate-chip topping
DINNER
4 bottles of wine (red or white)
2 loaves garlic bread
1 family size supreme pizza
3 snickers bars
LATE NIGHT SNACK
whole frozen white chocolate cherry cheesecake
(eaten directly from the freezer)
REMEMBER: STRESSED SPELLED BACKWARDS IS DESSERTS
Send this to four women and you will lose two pounds.
Send this to six women and you will lose four pounds.
Send this to all the women you know or ever knew, and you will lose 10 pounds.
If you delete this message, you will immediately gain 10 pounds.
The South Beach Diet
And see
The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss
by Arthur Agatston (2003).
Agatston recommends that you
- Eat plenty of high-fiber foods, lean proteins, and healthy fats.
- Cut out simple carbs to get blood sugar under control and stop the
incessant cravings. He is concerned about foods usually seen as
healthy, such as orange juice, wheat toast, and carrots.
He also cuts bread, rice, pastas, and fruits.
- Don't worry unduly about portion size or exercise.
His three stages are:
- Stage one: The most
restrictive period of the diet lasts just two weeks, when you avoid all carbohydrates and fruit.
No bread. No potatoes. No rice or pasta. No bagels, croissants, doughnuts, cookies, or cake.
This lets you "stabilize your urges"
and lose a few pounds.
- Stage two: Add fruits. Pick a few carbs to enjoy within limits.
You stay in this stage until you have dropped your weight to your target.
- Stage three: (for the rest of your life) add more - see his book. You'll
be eating normally now.
Chocolate Taste Test.
- Obtain a variety of Real Chocolates.
- Look for 50% to 70% cocoa solids.
High, but not exaggerated cocoa content is suggested.
- The origin and variety of the cocoa beans will tell you more about the
chocolate's quality than anything else.
- Any added vanilla should be real vanilla, not vanillin (an artificial flavoring derived from pine trees).
- For comparison, you might want to include some Fast Chocolates,
though some would say "why bother."
- Yes, eat dessert first.
Test-tast chocolate on an empty stomach.
- Have the chocolate at room temperature.
Danger: if you store it in a
refrigerator, you may cause the cocoa to separate, creating a white bloom on the surface.
- Naturally, in a test, you are sampling different chocolates.
Taste them in sequence, according to their percentage of chocolate.
Some suggest that you begin with the one containing the least cocoa:
white chocolate, which may have cocoa butter, but it has no cocoa at all.
The next lowest will be the milk chocolate.
Others, like Chantal Coady,
suggest that you begin with the one containing the greatest percentage of cocoa.
-
Set up some classes of water, perhaps room temperature, so that you can clear your palate between samples.
- For each sample use:
| The Five Senses Chocolate test as recommended in
Real Chocolate : Sweet and Savory Recipes for Nature's Purest Form of Bliss
by Chantal Coady.
|
- Smell. Sniff the chocolate.
What do you notice?
Fruit? Woody notes? Spices? Tobacco? etc.
- Sound. Break the chocolate close to your ear and listen.
Real chocolate contains cocoa butter crystals,
and will have a distinct snap.
Fast chocolate, on the other hand,
"is more like plasticine; expect a dull thud."
- Sight. The bar itself should be flawless and lustrous.
When you have broken the chocolate bar, look at the features of the break.
It should not collapse in crumbles and splinters.
It should be glossy (indicating freshness)
and reddish (indicating that it was not over-roasted).
- Touch. Cocoa butter melts at 94°F.
It should melt at body temperature.
The higher the quantity of cocoa butter, the better quality the chocolate and the lower the temperature at which
it melts.
- Taste. Finally we get the point of it all!!
Allow the chocolate to sit in your mouth for a few seconds to
release its primary flavors and aromas. Then chew it a few times to release
the secondary aromas. Let it rest lightly against the roof of your mouth so
you experience the full range of flavors. Finally, enjoy the lingering taste in your mouth.
This will reveal how smooth is the chocolate (its particle size will be so fine in
real chocolate
that you will not notice it);
its finish (lingering deliciously, without any greasy residue);
and the perfume of the released volatile aromas as the chocolate melts in your mouth.
Chocolate History.
- 500 B.C. to 1150 A.D.
- The Olmecs
(believed to be the first to have cultivated
theobroma cacao)
thrived in Central America.
- 1150-1521
- The Aztecs, a powerful tribe in Central America when
Hermán Cortés
led the Spanish invasion, used chocolate for the drink of their king
and used chocolate as part of their currency.
- 1502-1504
- Christopher Colombus brought the first cocoa beans back to
Europe, but failed to exploit them.
- 1519
- Hermán Cortés sailed from Spain and
reached the coast of Yucatán, where he led the Spanish Invasion of the
Aztec Empire.
Cortés then returned with cocoa to Europe, and was the first to exploit the
commercial value in the beans in Europe.
- 1521
- Hermán Cortés conquerored the Aztecs
with the capitulation of their capital after a long and blood-thirsty siege.
- 1657
- The first chocolate house opens in London. It advertises chocolate as "this
excellent West India drink."
In the countries that did accept the drink, it was limited to the wealthy
because of its high price.
London' elite begin meeting in the chocolate houses.
- 17th century
- The chocolate beverage become the fashionable drink throughout Europe. Some condemn it as an evil
drink, adding to its popularity.
Europeans think that chocolate "comforted the liver, aided in digestion
and made one happy and strong."
- 1728
- In Britain, Fry and Sons opened as
"the first entrepeneurs to pioneer big chocolate in Europe"
(Rosenblum).
- 18th century
- Cocoa plantations spread to the tropics in both northern and southern hemispheres.
With increased production, the price of cocoa beans falls and
chocolate became more generally affordable and popular.
- 1830
- In Britain, the British J. S. Fry and Sons, a chocolate maker, developed eating chocolate.
Previously, chocolate was used exclusively for drinking.
- 1853
- In England, the heavy import duties on chocolate
were reduced. This encouraged several to start making cocoa and drinking chocolate.
- 1870's
- Swiss manufacturers, who have access to huge amounts of milk,
add milk to chocolate, creating the first milk chocolate.
- 1879
- Rudolf Lindt added triglyceride cocoa butter. As a result, a bar of chocolate can be snapped
and yet it melts in the mouth. Cocoa butter begins to soften at 75°F; it melts at 97°F.
- 1880
- Rudolf Lindt (Swiss) invented the process of conching to make chocolate smooth.
- 1915
- First death by chocolate? Rosenblum
reports that Heinrich Stollwerck,
from a German family of "big chocolate" and large mechanization,
fell into a blending machine he had invented and drowned in chocolate.
Chocolate Science: chemistry and psychology.
| Chocolate Passion: Recipes and Inspiration from the Kitchens of Chocolatier Magazine
by Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty
Fifty-four luscious recipes from editors at Chocolatier Magazine
Try Tahitian Vanilla Swirls.
Or Extra Bittersweet
Ganache Truffles.
Or Milk Chocolate Mousse Roulade.
|
Biology.
- Chocolate is made from the seeds of Theobroma cacao, the tropical
cacao tree.
- Linnaeus, the 17th century Swedish naturalist, named
the cacao tree. The Greek term theobroma means "food of
the gods".
Chemistry.
Chocolate contains:
- Anandamide. This is an endogenous
cannabinoid present in the brain.
- Antioxidants (polyphenols), which can fight cancer and may protect against heart disease.
Antioxidants, which absorb free radicals (these can damage cells in the body)
prevent fat-like substances from oxidizing and clogging the arteries.
It's known that antioxidants come from fruits and vegetables, red wine, and black tea;
people that eat antioxidant-rich diets have been found to have lower rates of cancer
and cardiovascular disease.
Antioxidants in dark chocolate and cocoa powder may increase the HDL ("good") cholesterol
levels, by up to 10 percent [Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., a
registered dietitian at Pennsylvania State University, quoted
in http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/diet.fitness/02/02/chocolate.wmd/ ;
they also report her previous research
(published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in
1997), which
"showed that one of the fats in chocolate, called stearic acid, can boost HDL
levels"].
Heavily processed chocolate has extra oils and sugars, and this dilutes the antioxidants:
"while a bar of dark chocolate weighing about 1.5 ounces contains approximately
950 milligrams of antioxidants, a similar bar of milk chocolate contains
about only about 400 milligrams. White chocolate is a confection of fat and sugar
and contains no antioxidants at all."
[As reported at http://www.lifespan.org/Services/Nutrition/Articles/chocolate.htm ].
- Calories. 50 grams (1.75 oz.) of Trader Joe's dark chocolate contains 230 calories.
One of the 12 squares in the bar, then, contains less than 20 calories.
A reasonable diet would allow you one such bar per week with one or two squares from it per day.
- Flavonoids, which are said to reduce "bad" cholesterol and increase "good" cholesterol.
As a result, chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease, deep-vein thrombosis, and stroke.
Fresh cocoa beans contain 10,000 milligrams flavonol per 100 grams.
Commercial Dove dark chocolate contains about 500 mgm. flavonol per 100 grams, while
Cocoapro cocoa powder has slightly under 5,000 per 100 grams
- respectively, a twentieth of the amount and a half of the amount of
flavonol in fresh cocoa beans.
- Glycemic index: low, and so it keeps your blood glucose level relatively stable.
Real chocolate has an index of 49. Milk chocolate has an index of 45.
[Under 50 is considered low, so we real chocolate just squeaks in.]
- Magnesium.
- N-oleolethanolamine and N-linoleoylethanolamine, which both inhibit the metabolism of anandamide.
(Possibly they prolong the feeling of well-being induced by anandamide.)
- Phenylethylamine, which increases the serotonin level in the brain.
A surge of phenylethylamine is associated with feelings of bliss.
- Phytonutrients, have been linked to the prevention of both cancer and
heart disease. These occur in coffee, green tea, and chocolate, as well as fruits and
vegetables.
- Tetrahydro-beta-carbolines, which are neuroactive alkaloids,
- Theobromine, which is a stimulant similar to caffeine, but slightly weaker.
You'd have to eat about 10 ounces of chocolate for
the same effect as a cup of coffee.
- Tryptophan, an essential amino acid.
The Associated Press reported in December 17, 1998 on a study of 7,841 Harvard male graduates, and
published in the British Medical Journal. The most successful ate only a little, however:
one to three bars a month was associated with a 36% lower risk of death compared with
those who did not eat chocolate.
The researchers speculated that the antioxidants chocolate may have a health benefit.
In the study, men (average age of 65) were questioned in 1988 about their habits
of eating bars of chocolate and "candy"
the past year; it excluded other chocolate desserts like cake, sauce, etc.
The men were followed 5 years later, and 514 had died.
Several scientists have expressed suspicion that the lower risk of death
is related to other factors, and that a more controlled study is needed.
WARNING:
Chocolate contains a compound that can trigger migraines in some people.
If you suffer from migraine, you should probably avoid ingesting chocolate.
Psychology.
- Chocolate is a psychoactive food.
- For example, its contribution of tryptophan can
enhance production of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which diminishes anxiety.
- Its contribution of phenylethylamine can increase the release
of dopamine in the mesolimbic pleasure-centers.
Chocolate Glossary
- Alkalinization
- In the early 19th century, Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten
discovered that he could neutralized
the acid taste of cocoa by adding alkali-potash to the
nibs before roasting them.
Industrial chocolate makers use this alkalization process to soften the flavor.
Also called the
Dutch process.
- Aztecs
- A powerful tribe in Central America when
Hermán Cortés
led the Spanish invasion.
They used chocolate as part of their currency.
See also
Los Aztecas: sus números, sus días y sus dioses.
- Bean
- A cocoa bean is the seed of the pod of the Theobroma tree.
The beans are cracked open to obtain the nibs.
- Bitter Chocolate
- A dark chocolate, made from chocolate liquid which has been cooled and molded into blocks.
In the USA, the FDA
requires it not to contain any sugar.
Astonishingly (and hypocritically) it may contain natural or artificial flavoring.
Usually it contains about 85% chocolate liquor.
This chocolate is intended for cooking.
- Bittersweet Chocolate
- A slightly sweetened dark chocolate;
in the USA, the FDA
requires it to contain a minimum of 35% chocolate liquor.
Usually, however, this name is reserved for chocolate with a minimum of 50% chocolate liquor.
Used primarily for baking, from chocolate curls to dense death-by-chocolate cakes.
Different from unsweetened chocolate
and semi-sweet chocolate
- Blending
- After beans roasting
and before they are conching,
different beans may be mixed to adjust flavor.
- Bloom
- See fat bloom
and sugar bloom
- Cacao
- A cacao tree or its unprocessed pods.
Pods that have a higher 'cacao content' have a more intense chocolate flavor and lower sugar.
- Chocolate
- Ground nibs mixed with sugar and vanilla.
- Chocolate liquor
- The nibs of the cacao bean finely ground into a smooth, liquid state.
Although called "liquor", it does not contain alcohol.
As it has not been sweetened it is not yet
chocolate technically.
Also called unsweetened chocolate.
Some European chocolate labels identify it as Pate de Cacao.
- Chocolatier
- A shop or person that creates and sells chocolates.
- Chocoholic
- Someone who knows that a day without chocolate is like a strawberry
without cream, spring without tulips, night without stars.
- Cocoa Powder
- Cocoa solids pulverized and sifted after the
cocoa butter
is pressed out of the
chocolate liquor.
Unsweetened.
- Cocoa butter
- A fat in cocoa beans, obtained by
pressing the chocolate liquor or
unsweetened chocolate of the
cocoa bean
into a smooth and liquid state.
A bean is approximately 50% cocoa butter,
which is firm at room temperature.
The butter is a hard fat made up mostly of triglycerides.
- Cocoapro
- A patented process for cocoa owned by the Mars chocolate company
and used in the some of its chocolate products,
including
the Dove dark chocolate bar (see www.cocoavia.com).
- Compound
- Not a home-improvement product,
but a "not really chocolate"
blend of sugar, vegetable oil, cocoa powder and other components such as sorbitol or xylitol.
Vegetable oil (replacing cocoa butter) reduces costs, and causes the coating to melt
easily and then harden quickly.
Also, in such chocolate-flavored compounds, milk is replaced by whey powders, whey derivatives,
and dairy blends that are not allowed in milk chocolate.
Thus, it is a "chocolate-flavored candy", not a
real chocolate.
Also called confectionery coating
or Decorator's Chocolate.
- Conching
- Rudolf Lindt (Swiss) invented the process of conching in 1880.
He pummeled the chocolate between granite rollers for up to a week.
The temperature is held at 126 to 186 degrees.
The longer the chocolate is conched:
- the smaller the particle size, and the smoother it will feel;
- the more moisture is removed;
- the more volatile acids (such as acetic acid) will evaporate
- the more mellow will be the chocolate.
The machines he designed to perform this action contain rollers shaped like conches.
- Confectionery coating
- Another "not really chocolate" product:
a blend of sugar, vegetable oil, cocoa powder and other products.
Vegetable oil (replacing cocoa butter) reduces costs, and causes the coating to melt
easily and then harden quickly.
It is a "chocolate-flavored candy", not a
real chocolate.
Also called compound (which sounds like a
home-improvement product) or Decorator's Chocolate.
- Couverture
- High-quality chocolate with good bean
quality, fine particle size of ground bean, and at least 36% cocoa butter.
Used as a professional-quality coating chocolate:
due to the extra cocoa butter, the chocolate can form a
thinner coating shell than non-couverture chocolate.
- Criollo
- The richest and most fragrant of the cacaos, and the most expensive and fragile.
Grown especially in Central America, Venezuela, and Indonesia.
Fragile; goes into 1% of all chocolate.
- Dark chocolate
- Europeans define this to contain a minimum of 43% cocoa.
The better European chocolate bars list their percentage clearly.
A "70% cocoa chocolate" is considered quite dark.
"85%" or more is quite popular among lovers of dark chocolate.
- Dutch-Process cocoa powder
- Removes some bitterness from cocoa through treatment with alkali.
However, this can remove complexities from the flavor.
Also, conventional and Dutch Process chocolate have difference in pH (acidity) values, which
means that you should stick to which ever is called for in the recipe (especially
if it uses baking powder or baking soda).
- Enrobed chocolate
- A chocolates-making technique where the center of a chocolate
is covered it with a layer of outer chocolate by
(1) dipping the chocolate center by hand in liquid chocolate or
(2) pouring liquid chocolate over it. (Contrast with
molded chocolate.)
The covering layer should have been tempered.
- Fast Chocolate
- Chantal Coady defines
fast chocolate as containing less than 5 percent cocoa, and where the
other ingredients are mostly
"sugar, solid hydrogenated vegetable fats, nut oils, and a host of artificial flavorings.
... Use of fat other than cocoa butter is ... unacceptable."
Coady co-founded the Chocolate Society.
- Fat bloom
- A white cast that sometimes appears on the surface of the chocolate.
This is cocoa butter, and it separates slightly because of poor
tempering
or exposure of the chocolate to excessive heat or cold.
The product, while not pretty, is safe to eat.
Contrast with sugar bloom.
Cocoa butter can solidify into different
crystalline forms at different temperatures. Therefore untempered
chocolate may develop a white film if it has changes in temperature.
Sometimes the chocolate becomes crumbly. While bloom is
unwanted, it is not harmful: chocolate with bloom is still safe to eat.
- FDA standards
- The USA FDA specifies that all
semisweet chocolate
and bittersweet chocolate chocolate contains at least 35% chocolate.
This is significantly less than the percentage in
Real Chocolate.
The FDA specifies that sweet chocolate need contains only 15% chocolate.
The FDA specifies that milk chocolate need contains only 10% chocolate.
- Fermentation
- After harvesting and before roasting,
the beans and pulp emptied from the pods are fermented in the natural tropical heat
(i.e., not in an oven, for the best chocolate).
- Fermentation takes 2 or 3 days, and during this period the flavors and aromas of chocolates develop.
The beans turn from violet to brown.
European chocolate (and European-style chocolate) is roasted at lower temperatures
- Fondant
- French word for dark chocolate.
- Forastero
- Most chocolate worldwide is made from forastero beans,
grown especially in Brazil and West Africa.
It is the most disease-resistant and high yielding of the cacaos.
However, its beans tend to have a rough and harsh taste,
and be less flavorful than other types of beans.
May have been the first variety to appear.
- Fineness
- Particle size.
- Ganache
- A silky emulsion of chopped
semisweet chocolate
with heated cream and butter.
Also called truffle.
Sometimes the butter is omitted.
It is even possible to omit the cream.
It is used to glaze cakes, or fluffed and used as
fillings for truffles. It is made by mixing, then stirring until smooth.
- Grind
- The mechanical process of pulverizing the roasted cocoa bean nib
into the smooth liquid chocolate liquor.
- Hermán Cortés
- Sailed from Spain in 1519,
reaching the coast of Yucatán, where he led the Spanish Invasion of the Aztec Empire. Took
cocoa to Europe successfully.
Earlier (in 1502-1504) Christopher Columbus brought the first cocoa beans back to
Europe, but failed to exploit them.
So it was Cortés who first exploited in Europe the
commercial value in the beans.
- Lecithin
- A natural thinning emulsifier extracted from soy beans;
added to chocolate to reduce its viscosity (increasing its ability to flow when molten).
- Malitol
- A sugar substitute based on a Malt extract. Allows
chocolate to keep a sweet taste without sugar. A
popular sugar substitute in many chocolate
couvertures, such as in Belgian
chocolate sugar-free products.
- Marzipan
- A thick paste made by blending melted sugar and ground almonds.
Marzipan can be covered by a shell of milk, white or dark chocolate.
The Lubecker method uses only pure almonds and sugar, to achieve the richest almond taste.
- Maya
- Classical Maya culture 250-900 C.E.
- milk chocolate
- Chocolate with at least 10% chocolate liquor and 12% milk solids
(and/or milk or cream - condensed milk in Switzerland), combined with
sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla; lecithin may be added.
Quality milk chocolate contains at least 33% chocolate liquor.
- molded chocolate
- A chocolates-making technique where the chocolate is placed in molds,
which results in a molded chocolate "shell".
This shell is filled with one or several fillings
and then it is sealed with another layer of chocolate.
(Contrast with enrobed chocolate.)
- nacional
- Spicy; developed in Ecuador as a 'better'
forastero.
- nibs
- The kernel (center) of the cacao bean.
Without this, chocolate does not exist.
After roasting,
the beans are cracked open. The husks are removed by winnowing.
What remains are the nibs, the essence of chocolate.
Some products add these dark and rich nibs
to add texture to chocolate bars or desserts.
But most of the nibs are ground and heated.
Their high fat content makes them readily liquefied, converting
them to a chocolate liquor.
Half of this is cocoa butter, which is melted and separated out.
The other half, which more readily solidifies, is what can be ground up and used as cocoa powder.
Now the chocolate is ready for conching.
- Nougatine
- Sugar is heated until it caramelizes. Then finely
crushed roasted hazelnuts (or sometimes almonds) are mixed in.
The resulting paste is cooled then rolled and crushed to small pieces.
A filling in chocolates.
- Olmecs
- From 500 B.C. to 1150 A.D., the Olmecs thrived.
Believed to be the first to have cultivated
theobroma cacao.
- Organic
- Both
- Produced through farming that uses no artificial chemical pesticides and fertilizers
but maintains and replenishes the soil fertility.
- Processed without artificial ingredients, preservatives, irradiation, etc.
- Organic chocolate has a minimum of 95% organic (naturally grown and certified) raw material.
- Pod
- The cocoa pod is the fruit of the
theobroma cacao
is egg-shaped, 6 to 12 inches (15 and 30 centimeters) long.
They hang from the trunk itself as well as the largest branches.
One fruit pod contains 30 to 40 beans, each of about 0.5 inches (1 centimeters) in length.
- Praliné
- Chocolate to which has been added: caramelized sugar; well-roasted, finely-ground hazelnuts (or almonds);
and vanilla.
- Press cake
- Remains after cocoa butter has been pressed from
the chocolate liquor. Pulverized to make
cocoa powder.
- Real Chocolate
- Chantal Coady defines
real chocolate as " best-quality bittersweet chocolate with minimum 60 percent cocoa liquor".
See her Five Senses Chocolate Test
to learn how to recognize quality chocolate.
|
| Real Chocolate : Sweet and Savory Recipes for Nature's Purest Form of Bliss
Real chocolate advocate Chantal Coady
specifies simply that real chocolate is made with all-natural ingredients,
without over-sweetened additive and addition of non-cocoa fats.
The heart of the book has 50 delicious recipes arranged in 3 chapters:
(1) Savory Chocolate;
(2) Desserts and Drinks; and
(3) Cookies, Cakes, and Breads.
Try her Dark Chocolate and Cherry Crème Brûlée,
|
- roasting
- After fermentation, the beans are roasted.
European chocolate (and European-style chocolate) is roasted at lower temperatures
and for longer than is American chocolate. The longer roasting of for American
chocolate makes the chocolate bitter, and so it then has to be masked heavily with sugar and
(sadly) corn syrup.
- Semisweet Chocolate
- A sweetened dark chocolate;
the USA FDA requires it to contain a minimum of 35% chocolate liquor.
Different from unsweetened chocolate
and bittersweet chocolate
To prepare it, blend chocolate liquid with sweetening and added cocoa butter. Optionally include flavorings.
Cool after processing.
Semisweet chocolate is primarily available in pieces (blocs, squares, etc.), and is also available in bars.
- Sugar bloom
- The product, while not pretty, is safe to eat.
Contrast with Fat bloom.
Do not allow condensation on the surface of chocolate. It combines
with sugars to create a syrup. When the moisture evaporates,
the sugars recrystallize in dry and hard crystals that speckle on the surface.
This can happen if cold chocolate is exposed to warm and humid
air. An un-posh visual and textural defect.
Unless you are a terrible snob, close your eyes or eat it by candle-light - it still tastes great.
- Sweet Chocolate
- A sweetened dark chocolate with a minimum of 15% chocolate liquor.
Different from unsweetened chocolate
and bittersweet chocolate
and semisweet chocolate.
To prepare it, blend chocolate liquid with sweetening and
added cocoa butter. Optionally include flavorings.
Cool after processing.
Sweet chocolate is primarily available in bars.
- Tempering
- Chocolate is tempered by heating and then cooling it in a certain way to create
a lustrous shine and to avoid the appearance of
fat bloom.
If successfully tempered, the chocolate solidifies with a stable cocoa butter crystal form.
When chocolate is melted at the normal temperature (between 40 and 45°C) and
then cooled, the result does not have a gloss.
Chantal Coady
advises heating
bittersweet chocolate and
semisweet chocolate at 136°F to 142°F, and
milk chocolate and
white chocolate at 116°F to 126°F.
Then you pour a portion (between a third and three-quarters!) of the chocolate onto
a marble slab, where you spread it and work
it till it thickens and cools to about 80°F. Recombine the portions of the chocolate
and continue to cool your chocolate uniformly.
A great deal has to be attended to during the cooling to ensure that you get the desired gloss,
so see her book for clear instructions.
- Theobroma cacao
- An evergreen
tree
whose fruit lets us make
chocolate, the food of gods.
The genus name, Theobroma, is derived from
the ancient Greek for "god" (theo) and "food" (broma).
Native of tropical Amazon forests.
Now grown commercially worldwide, in tropical rainforests within 20° latitude of the
equator.
The tree
is in blossom permanently, and has fruit at various stages of development.
- Trinitaro
- Has a greater flavor than forastero,
and often blended with it to enhance its flavor.
Grown especially in Central America.
A hybrid; in 10% of chocolate; thrived in Trinidad after the early-1700s Caribbean calamity.
- Truffle
- An irregularly shaped confection of
ganache, coated with
chocolate.
Some are irregular, some are smooth. Some are dusted with
cocoa powder.
- Unsweetened chocolate
- The ground up nib of the cocoa bean.
When in a liquid state this is chocolate liquor.
The liquor is cooled and molded into blocks.
This is the best type for baking or cooking.
Also called Bitter Chocolate.
- Vanilla
- Flavor often added to chocolate;
derived from the cured pod ('vanilla bean') of a tropical orchid.
- White chocolate
- Made from cocoa butter, milk solids, sugar, and vanilla; it often includes lecithin also.
For good quality, it should have at least 32% cocoa butter.
Critics and fuss-budgets hold that this is not, actually, chocolate as it does not contain cocoa solids
or chocolate liquor.
Without cocoa butter, the product is a confectionery but is not white chocolate.
- witches' broom fungus
- A huge problem for cocoa farmers,
this fungus has blighted Brazil's cacao industry.
From the health point of view, if has few of the benefits of
dark chocolate,
and so the latter is preferred for those on a chocolate-using diet.
- Xocoatl
- The name used
by the Aztecs,
Toltecs, Mayas, and Incas for the drink they brewed from cocoa beans.
They mixed cocoa and maize with water.
