Thought of the Day

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”—Sir Richard Steele

Adding vanilla can be a simple or complex as you desire it. If you chocolate recipe contains extra cocoa butter, try splitting a vanilla bean and “extracting” it in the melted cocoa butter for an hour or so. Then scrape the seeds into the butter, toss the bean and add the extract to your refining chocolate. The seeds will refine and you will have a nice addition of vanilla. The proportion is up to you, but I like one vanilla bean to about 5 lbs of chocolate.

“Humor is also a way of saying something serious.”—T. S. Eliot

Although it is a bit counter intuitive, if you add a little (5-10%) cocoa butter to your chocolate recipe, the chocolate may actually taste richer and more intense. It is because the cocoa butter melts easier and carries the flavors to your mouth quicker.

“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.”

At some point I mentioned that milk chocolate required conching of 160 F. I should (and will) clarify that to say that many in the chocolate industry take their milk chocolate to that temperature. I have done a couple elevated temperature tests and where as the chocolate was different, it was by no means better (or worse). Again, you are the chocolate maker. Make the chocolate as you see fit.

“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”—Aristotle

If you are “just” cooking or baking with your chocolate, there is no need to refine. 12 oz of cocoa liquer and 4 oz of sugar added to your wet ingredients will give you the same as 1 lb of 75% (bittersweet) chocolate.

“Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”—Sarah Bernhardt

If your chocolate is a bit bitter by the end of refining, it may be a sign you over roasted it slightly. Astrigency sometimes indicates under roasting. Both of these assume a cocoa bean with a good track history of good chocolate. There is little chance of making quality chocolate from defective beans.

“Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”—Albert Einstein

You can use either the Crankandstein cocoa mill or the Champion juicer (without the screen) to crack cocoa beans into nibs. The trade off is effeciency vs waste. The Mill is slower but you have less waste.

Happy New Year

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”—Marie Curie

The Santha chocolate Melanger can be used for more than just making Chocolate. You can use it to make nut butters which in itself can be used to make something else I have heard you “can’t make at home” – Praline paste. And praline filled chocolate is to die for.

“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” – Vincent Van Gogh

A little longer today, and probably the last until the holidays are over.

There are general types of cocoa beans. Criollo, Forastero, and the hybrid of the two, Trinatario. Many people consider Criollo to be the “holy grail” of cocoa due to it’s delicate flavor and rarity, but a name does not make a chocolate good. Criollo has the oportunity to be great (sublime, delicate and fruity), but a bad fermintation can ruin it (flat, pasty, bitter and tasteless), and that appears to happen quite often. Choose your cocoa based on what it tastes like, not what it is called. Likewise, Forastero is common, but that doesn’t mean it is not good. Good Forastero is wonderful, deep and rich – everything we love in chocolate. Unfortunately, when it is bad, it is really bad (think bitter, astringent, mouth puckering, unsweetened baker’s chocolate that I KNOW you tasted as a child).

So enter into chocolate making with an open mind. Ignore the labels, read the discriptions, taste it yourself and go from there.

“To thine own self be true”

And that quote goes right to the heart of making your own chocolate. I can’t tell you how to make the “perfect” chocolate. There is no universal perfect chocolate. I can only give you the tools to make chocolate that is perfect to YOU.

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. —Bertrand Russell”

Take your time when grinding your cocoa nibs with the Champion. You should not have to press the nibs in with much more force than the weight of your hand. More than that and the only thing you accomplish is excess heating of the liquour and wear on you equipment.