Ask the Alchemist #331
The website update is coming along. Somewhere along the way the questions you submitted to Ask the Alchemist were not coming to me and we only just discovered it. That is partly why I’ve not written anything in the last few weeks. Having found a bunch, I figured I’d take a few simple ones to get us going again.
Before I get going, I want to apologize if I come across a little taciturn today. It isn’t my intent. Consider it that I’m giving back in effort that that person posing the question put into making the question good and complete. Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO), as it were.
I recently made white chocolate but the consistency didn't come out properly.
And? Classic GIGO. Sadly you have not given me anything to help you. No recipe. No real idea what the issue is. Was it too thin? Was it too thick? Did it go crumbly because you didn’t temper it? Did you make 8 oz and refine it 4 days and it was over-refined and gummy?
Folks, I LOVE your questions but you have GOT to give me something to work with. I mean, that wasn’t even a question. It is a statement. What was I supposed to say? I’m sorry?
What is the best milk chocolate you've ever tasted or created? And also goes very well with strawberries. And do you sell it? I'm looking to buy 50 lbs or so.
There is no best chocolate and my best is not going to be your best. I really like the Maillard Milk Chocolate but some people find it too savory. Many people like the Dark Milk Chocolate recipe but find it too dark. 25% of each ingredient works. At the end of the day you are going to have to FAFO what YOU like best. That said, the milk chocolate I adored was made from Madagascar (about 12%), there was malt powder added (less than 5%), the beans were roasted a titch heavy, the cocoa butter (a lot was used) was pressed from the same beans, and there was a scooch (no clue how much) of browned butter added. That rocked. I don’t have the recipe as I was in FAFO mode and didn’t record anything and have failed at reproducing it.
We don’t sell chocolate. We teach you how to make chocolate.
I want to know which all Cocoa Butter substitutes can be used. Will Almond oil/Cashew oil/hazelnut oil which are cold pressed can be used. If yes, in what proportion and what changes can we expect.
This seems to have touched a nerve for me. I’m not unaware that cocoa butter prices have gone crazy. My take is you should either adjust your recipes to not need cocoa butter or just buy it and support great chocolate. I’d rather do without than have subpar chocolate. In so many ways it feels you just asked how to make Wonder bread on an artisan baking site. This is how Budweiser went from someone being blown away by a crisp, delightful German pilsner and wanting to share it with America to the swill it is now. Ditto for the founder of Hershey’s. They took something they loved and kept cutting corners (for price or consistency or whatever) until the result was so far from the original that it would be abhorrent and unrecognizable to the founders.
I’m saying this due to the adage “those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it”. It is your call whether you repeat history but now you know it.
Ranting over, here is the answer.
No oil is going to act like cocoa butter by the very nature of being an oil. Oils are liquid at room temperature, cocoa butter is not. Long story short you are going to need to FAFO as different oils and fats are going to act different depending on the recipe. You want to go research cocoa butter equivalents (CBE). This paper lays it out pretty well.
If it isn’t clear, I’m not a fan of them. I like cocoa butter. Replacements are the well trod road to crappy chocolate-like products which brought the Bean to Bar chocolate movement into existence. That said, if you have a reason other than price to use them, then that I can get behind. I used milk fat and coconut oil it in last month’s Kit of the Month and use it in our S’mores chocolate to make them melt easier. I’m assuming you are not doing that since you use the word replacement.
A while back when you introduced Pataxte, you showed a picture of swirled bars. On many other occasions, you have mentioned (and I have experienced) that disturbing the chocolate as it cools causes tempering issues. How can I swirl the Pataxte in to the chocolate without wrecking my temper?
YAY, finally a good question.
The method I’ve found works best is to lay down drizzles of either chocolate or pataxte, let it set up and then finish the mold with the other chocolate.
What also works is to get both chocolates in temper and gently combine them in one bowl and then pour up as usual.
When is your next class schedule for 2024, 2025?
We currently don’t have anything set up. We may be doing a Roasting seminar later in the year and a chocolate making 101 in October.
Also, this is not really the kind of question that goes into Ask the Alchemist. Please reach out to me direction via our Contact Us page for non-troubleshooting and technical questions. Thanks.
Have you had any luck at all brewing beer with only cocoa husks? I read the Brewing with Cocoa article and seen videos where you mention they are not a pleasant addition alone and are not referenced in the brewing trial comparisons, but I see husks sold in your shop noting they can be added to homebrew. I'm curious at what amount and stages they work best and if they are normal temp husks compared to the higher temp brewing cocoa.
I’m deeply glad you read the brewing article. Thank you. The long story short is that husk produces such a hideous brew to my tastes that we didn’t even get past the barest test before deciding it had no redeeming qualities for brewing. I should edit the brewing article and say that. It is just a shell. There is no chocolate flavor in it. You are right, I did mention it in our husk product. I’ve now corrected the error of my ways send people to the Brewer’s Blend.
Do you have a semisweet or bittersweet recipe? Would rather make my own over purchasing a bag of them.
Yes and no. We don’t have it by name as the names really don’t mean a whole lot. They are terms that have agreed upon meanings. One person’s semisweet can be another’s sweet and someone else’s bittersweet could be bitter to someone else. I outline it all pretty well in Ask the Alchemist #228 and I found that page to give you the link by using our Search Feature. You can find all our recipes in our Recipe section.
That is all for now. I hope I was not too snarky. The site update is taking longer than we had hoped but we (and by we, I mean our rockstar Ruzz) are making progress every day.
