Is it possible to add a botanical like maca to the tempered chocolate? and if so what is the best way to add it without disturbing the structure?
It really depends upon how much you are adding. I have had maca in chocolate, stirred in at the time of tempering and didn’t like the texture at all. I’ve also refined it in and that was orders of magnitude better.
As for disrupting the structure, that really isn’t in issue with a couple caveats.
Mostly it is not an issue because maca doesn’t contain oils or enough oils to cause any issue. You only have to worry about disturbing the crystal structure if what you are adding is similar enough, i.e. is or has a bunch of fat, such as milk powder, coconut oil or the like. Powders are not going to interact….mostly.
The mostly is the other caveat. Maca contains a lot of fiber and IF you are adding enough that you significantly increase the viscosity, that can cause you issues just like not having enough fat in your chocolate. It can create shear that can cause bloom.
The other thing to watch out for is that your maca is of a similar temperature to your working temperature. If it is cool, you can drop the temperature of the chocolate, force Type IV to form and get bloom either directly or because it got too thick.
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I am trying to mix a cocoa powder and bakers sugar mixture into a soft serve ice cream using waring mixer. It takes forever to get it homogenized, but after reading your research, I guess that doesn't really happen. Do you have any suggestions for me do to make a faster shake
One issue here (please take note everyone who is sending in questions) is you have not given me enough information to work with. There are lots of waring mixers and some I look at and think they wouldn’t work well (like the waring stand mixer) but there are also Waring immersion blenders which I suspect should work just fine. Without knowing that I’m just kind of guessing what you did and so can’t really help as much as I want or offer where you might have gone wrong.
With that, because I have successfully used an immersion blender, I’m going to assume that isn’t what you used.
I have successfully done this two ways. In the first I put in half the ice cream, added my sugar and cocoa powder and then the remainder of the ice cream and blended it. It just went right together. It took maybe a minute.
If you are doing this a lot, then I recommend making a ganache and blending that in. For that, heat a cup of cream and whisk in the cocoa powder and sugar until it is nice and smooth, and then chill it. You may or may not need to bring it to a boil. Then just take a couple spoonfuls and repeat what I described above. Ice cream, ganache, ice cream. It should blend right in even easier.
And a bonus question this week since they are kind of themed together as cooking creations and not quite chocolate making.
Do you have a recipe for or experience with making candied whole cocoa beans? I ate some in Costa Rica that were really good and I’d like to make my own. It’s definitely not rocket science, but I botched my first try and my second attempt wasn’t very good, so figured I’d check to see if you had any experience with it.
Similar to the previous question, you’ve not really given me enough to work with. I don’t know what you did so I can’t offer solutions. I can only take a stab in the dark as to what has worked for me….so I’ll do just that.
First off, you need to decide if you want to peel your whole cocoa or not. Personally, I like the husk just fine and find the work of peeling them just too damn tedious. A quick side not, and I realize it isn’t what you asked but you can dodge the peeling by instead making candied cocoa nibs.
I’m going to make a couple assumptions on what you tried based on a couple not perfect batches I made. I’m guessing you 1) made a syrup and stirred in your cocoa beans…and kept stirring and that is why they burned. And maybe when you tried again you didn’t use some type of binding agent to get the sugar to stick and/or the beans were cold. Here is what has worked for me.
1 lb whole roasted cocoa beans
3/4 brown sugar (I like dark, light is fine)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg white
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. I lined a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix all your dry ingredients.
Whip your egg white until very frothy up to the point of very soft peaks. Add the vanilla extract if you are using it.
Add the roasted cocoa beans to the egg whites and stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients and to combine.
Spread out the mixture in a single layer on the baking sheet.
Bake for 1-1.5 hours, stirring almonds every 15 minutes.
After the cocoa beans have baked an hour, taste one to see if it is as crisp as you want and adjust the baking time as needed. At 250 F you are in no danger of burning the beans.
Let the candied cocoa beans cool, uncovered.
Although I don’t tend to like acidic beans for my chocolate, I find I often really like them as whole beans. Madagascar and Piura from Peru are two favorites for eating whole.
I hope that helps.