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Post by lyndon on Apr 30, 2013 10:34:11 GMT -5
Hi, I've been experimenting recently with making chocolate, and currently own a wonder grinder and a chocolate holding tank. I've been using cocoa powder rather than cocoa beans, as I figured it would be easier to start off. But does this make a different to tempering? I've been using the formulation that 50% cocoa powder plus 50% cocoa butter equals "cocoa solids", as I read on this site that's the rough estimate for the contents of a bean. I've not been having much luck with tempering though. I've heated the chocolate up to 110F, let it drop to 90F, taken 25% and let it cool in an oven for a few hours and them chopped and dumped it back in, keeping it below or at 90F. Recipe: 20% cocoa powder 32% cocoa butter 28% soy flour 20% sugar Perhaps I just need to adjust things all over the board? Any advice is welcome
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Post by anish on Apr 30, 2013 21:05:35 GMT -5
Starting from cocoa powder is not a good idea unless u are sure about the source and quality of cocoa powder. Big company's tend to split poor quality cocoa beans into butter and powder. So that they can deodorize butter and use into other products. Remaining cocoa powder they dump to market, that will be fine for baking.
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Post by lyndon on May 1, 2013 12:17:35 GMT -5
So other than taste quality it has no effect on the process of tempering etc?
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Post by Brad on May 1, 2013 16:40:16 GMT -5
Lyndon;
Think about what chocolate is: a whole bunch of little pieces of things - cocoa beans, sugar crystals, chunks of vanilla - all suspended in fat. There's little physical difference between a tiny piece of cocoa powder and a tiny piece of cocoa nib, other than maybe the tiny piece of nib has more overall fat bound into it, as opposed to the piece of cocoa powder that has the fat pressed out.
Hope that makes sense.
Brad
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Post by anish on May 2, 2013 3:51:11 GMT -5
No difference in tempering and all...
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Post by lyndon on May 4, 2013 3:23:27 GMT -5
Thanks Brad, that was my thought too. But being new at this I didn't want to take anything for granted. The amount of information out there for making chocolate is minuscule this site is definitely the best source I have found.
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Post by littleblue on Jun 3, 2013 10:34:55 GMT -5
Hi there, I've been making small batch raw chocolate for a while now from just raw agave nectar, cacao powder (raw) and cacao butter (raw), and have my recipe pat - may I ask, why are you using soy flour? I can't actually see chemically or nutritionally that this has any benefit for the chocolate, or are you trying to replace lecithin, which doesn't always need replacing?
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