In order for a product to be sold as chocolate in this country most, if not all the fat (some popular chocolates can contain up to 5% vegetable fat) inside it must be cocoa butter.
Cocoa butter is a naturally occurring fat which accounts for over half the dry weight of a cocoa bean. It’s the cocoa bean that gets processed and gets turned into chocolate (with the help of sugar and maybe a few other ingredients).
So far, so good, but wait a minute; cocoa butter isn’t any old fat. Cocoa butter displays polymorphism, meaning that it can display six different crystalline forms (gamma, alpha, beta double, beta prime, beta and Form VI)…scary stuff.
Does this mean you have to be a scientist to work with chocolate? Not really, but it does help if you can get your head around the science involved. Just don’t get too carried away and end up surrounding your self with test tubes etc to make it look like you are some kind of boffin… like some.
In a nutshell if you want your chocolates to look all sexy and stuff then it’s only the beta form that gives chocolate its desirable properties. If you want your chocolate to look all scabby and trampy looking then you better be looking at some of the other forms which are the easiest to come by.
When it comes to working with chocolate then pre-crystallisation is by far the hardest trick to learn. Not only that, but even your working environment could have a negative effect on your results.There could be too much moisture in your kitchen for example.
If you want to produce your own chocolates then you have to learn this skill. It’s not easy. Even using different chocolates or couvertures (Cocoa butter from different growing regions can have different Triglyceride compositions) can act slightly different from one another and will require you to slightly modify your actions. Loads of things can go wrong.
One bit of advice I’d like to share with you is to forget about temperatures. As long as you have melted your chocolate between 40˚C and 45˚C that’s the last time you need to measure the temperature.
I’ve heard some people say they can tell their chocolate is tempered (old-fashioned word but still widely used) by placing some on their lips. All I can say on this subject is that those people must have some friggin amazing lips. Lips that can distinguish between different crystalline formations….they should appear on Britain’s got Talent.
Anyway, here's a nice little video from Keylink LTD that can show you in film far easier than I can explain. Give it a go and don’t give up.
If you still don't get it then invest in a course. There are loads to choose from. There are a couple here Barry Callebaut and here Cocoa Barry.
Obviously you can buy certain things to make life that little bit easier when it comes to pre-crystallisation like an automatic tempering machine for instance which will set you back £300-£400 pound but if one day that machine doesn’t feel like working or you have knackered the baffle…what you going to do then?
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