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Post by justing30 on Jan 27, 2015 1:12:02 GMT -5
Hello everyone. I have a quick question. I've been getting really in to making chocolate candies lately by melting down chips and adding flavorings. I want to kind of bump it up a bit. If I want to have my own signature chocolate flavor, is it better to do this by buying powder and adding ingredients or just buying higher end chips and adding my flavorings? I'm not at the point yet to be able to make completely from bean.
Thanks so much
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Post by lyndon on Jan 27, 2015 9:20:30 GMT -5
You would definitely be better off buying a chocolate you like as your base product and going from there.
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Post by timwilde on Jan 27, 2015 15:41:35 GMT -5
From what you're explaining, I would suggest a few different things.
You can buy chocolate couverture(sp?) from any of the good manufacturers. You'll note that each of them offer different % ratings; this is the % of cocoa (beans/solids + cocoa butter). Keep in mind that couverture has a higher cocoa butter content than most eating chocolates but that makes it better for dipping and coating candies.
Experiment with blending the different ratios to get a different/unique flavor as well as different textures. Most of the higher end chocolate texts I've read almost all of recipes/formulations in them have a blend of different cocoa % ratios to make the finished candies.
A good note as well: dont be afraid to blend different manufacturers together either. You may find that the flavor one manufacturer makes may complement a different percentage that another manufacturer makes. This flavor blending will help bring out a unique flavor signature to your finished product.
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Post by justing30 on Jan 28, 2015 0:08:18 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice. I really want to experiment mostly with bars with flavoring oils. Since buying it couverture has higher cocoa butter, do you have any blends or anything you would recommend to start trying for a nice bar?
Thanks
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Post by timwilde on Jan 28, 2015 1:52:36 GMT -5
You can get couverture from almost anyone. Biggest/most popular names I know of are E.Guitard and Callebaut. But I've seen Lindt and a few others at various shops. Be careful with oils, make sure they're food safe.
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Post by justing30 on Jan 28, 2015 14:21:49 GMT -5
Thank you so much. Another question i have that Ive tried, but didn't work out that maybe you have a tip or trick too. I bought the oils to put in the chocolate and its fine and dandy but i just dont like the after flavor. I would love to try infuse chocolate bars with actual ingredients. Whats the best way to go about this? For instance if i want an orange flavored bar, whats the best way to infuse a real orange into the chocolate bar? I dont want to do it with ganache, just with solid chocolate.
Thanks!
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Post by lyndon on Jan 28, 2015 14:58:29 GMT -5
You can use a food grade essential oil for orange flavour, you can get organic versions too.
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Post by timwilde on Jan 28, 2015 15:00:42 GMT -5
The only way to do that would be oils. If you're getting an aftertaste, try less oil. Water is bad and will seize the chocolate. so, throwing fresh orange zest could seize the chocolate. Other option would be to add dried zest during refining, but you'd need the refiner to go bean-to-bar to help refine and mix the zest in there and refine it down to reasonable size to not be noticed as chunks.
I could be wrong here though, I've not had much experience with flavoring outside of meltaways.
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Post by justing30 on Jan 28, 2015 20:21:25 GMT -5
Thanks so much. I found a other forum where they talk about infusing flavors into cocoa butter then adding that to the chocolate. Going to try that this weekend and see how it goes. Thanks again for the input and advice.
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