Avoid Common Mistakes When Working With Chocolate
Sure,
chocolate brings a smile to your face, but what if it doesn’t? Snack Food
& Wholesale Bakery’s managing editor, Marina Mayer, recently spoke with
several experts to find out what can go wrong in the chocolate-making process
and learn why sometimes it doesn’t always come out as smooth and silky as you
like.
John Sweeney, director of technology for Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate,
Lititz, Pa.:
When
using chocolate it is important to remember that chocolate is a dispersion of
fine solid particles such as cocoa, sugar in cocoa butter fat. The cocoa fat
contained in chocolate is unique in that it is a solid fat at room temperature
but melts in your mouth. Cocoa fat is
polymorphic, which means after melting as it solidifies, it can crystallize
into different crystal forms.
A major
step in the chocolate process is tempering where the cocoa butter is
crystallized to the most stable form. Well-tempered chocolate will contract
when it is cooled and therefore can be easily removed from a mould. It will
have good brittleness when broken into pieces. If chocolate is incorrectly
tempered after it has been melted it can sometimes result in what is called fat
bloom where it has a whitish film.
Another mistake can be letting
moisture or water contact the chocolate, which can make it impossible or
difficult to work with. It is important therefore to remove water and sources
of condensation when working with chocolate.
Adam Lechter, product services and
development manager for Archer Daniels Midland, Cocoa Division, Milwaukee: Chocolate
is a very unique ingredient and presents many technical challenges to those
just beginning to use it. The most common mistakes we see with chocolate would
be tempering mistakes, lack of temperature control, not choosing the right
product for an application, improper cooling and storage, odor pickup, mistaken
moisture addition and use of chocolate in products with incompatible fats.
Beau
Netzer, vice president of gourmet sales, Barry Callebaut, Chicago: I would say that what I see in
customers when they have application issues is when they utilize a chocolate
that doesn’t have the proper melt point for an inclusion, specifically in a
bakery. You have to have the proper melt point and the proper functionality of
the actual construction of the formula to work in applications. And I see
that’s probably the biggest.
What we
strive to do is when we go to industrial customers is very clearly articulate
specifications and understand what their processes are before we recommend a
chocolate. And I’d say it’s basically, in the bakery world, is probably the
critical thing.
And the other thing is also just
understanding how flavors can compete with each other, so it’s getting the
right flavor profile of the chocolate to mirror with the right dough if it’s a
cookie, if it’s a muffin, the right dough flavoring system to complement each
other versus conflicting with each other. So I’d say those are two critical
pieces to perfecting a perfect baked good.
Rose Potts, sensory programs
manager, The Blommer Chocolate Co., Chicago: Not
knowing all the options of products that are available for the customer’s
application.
This is where it is very important
that the customer allow their developers to speak directly to the R&D team
of the chocolate supplier so that recommendations can be made based on a flavor
profile that is to be achieved in combination with the functionality that is
expected.
Editor’s Note: For tips on new products and ingredient technology, visit www.snackandbakery.com, and coming soon, our upcoming December issue of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery magazine will feature more solutions for chocolate users. You can get a copy of the issue by clicking on the “subscribe” button on our Web site, or check out our online digital edition next month.
Photo courtesy of Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate
