Coffee and Chocolate, what’s not to love?

What else can I use my melanger for?

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.

This week we answer multiple questions and try to bring some science philosophy into the discussion.

I have 70% dark chocolate and some 100% cocoa mass. Can I add some mass to the 70% to get to 75% dark?

At this point, just make the chocolate as you would any other" isn't recipe directions. Would you call it a recipe for oatmeal cookies if I just listed the ingredients and then wrote, "Just make them like you would any other cookie"? Your "recipe" has only left me with dried nibs. Then what???

This sugar article has technically been in the making for over a decade and I realized it was time to finally put it all together and fill in some gaps in my knowledge.  To that end we made a bunch of chocolate, both dark and milk, with a wide array of sugars.  Here is our cast of characters.

After such a long and in depth viscosity discussion last week, I think we all deserve a simple speed round of Q and A.

Well, now that we have a good and prominent link up showing how to submit questions to me (hangs head in shame) so many are coming in it seems a good time for a pretty simple speed round

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.

How much vanilla extract should I add to my chocolate?

I wrote an article yesterday. It was kind of a venting rant session for me. Call it therapy. But I started having doubts that I might be just railing at the world and it wasn’t useful or delivered the message I wanted.

I have been making your milk chocolate using your suggested 25% blend of cocoa, sugar, milk power, and cocoa butter. I'm curious what the best way would be to try different percentages without messing up the end product?

Welcome to 2021 everyone. I don't have any earth shattering news....and I suspect you'll be relived by that. I know I am. Right? I do though have a few new things. Low key. You're welcome.

I am new to chocolate compound coatings and I have been learning a lot from your website. I am making a chocolate compound coating, though it’s mainly geared towards chocolate. The recipe is as follows: