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Post by tinker on Apr 3, 2017 2:18:20 GMT -5
I've read numerous recipes for chocolate sweetened with honey; cacao butter, cacao powder, and honey. Yet every time I attempt to make it, it turns into a thick chocolate honey concoction. It's not really siezing, more just forming to the consistency of honey. I only use raw honey. I have around 20 different honeys and have tried them all; cream honey, liquid honey, infused honey, orange blossom, clover, various viscosities etc. They all yield the same thick chocolate, or sometimes they'll just separated, leaving the honey at the bottom and the chocolate at the top. I've tried allowing the chocolate to cool before adding the honey. I've tried adding it when it's warm. I've heated the honey. I've tried stirring and whisking. I've tried different ratios of cacao butter to powder. There was only one time while I was experimenting and it worked. I've tried to repeat the process and it hadn't worked since. I've wasted so many ingredients. Some people say to blend it really well so it's well mixed, this just separates after cooling.
How do all these other people get it to work effortlessly? Do you have any idea what I'm doing wrong? Have you successfully made honey sweetened chocolate? I know that liquids make chocolate seize but I can make chocolate with maple syrup and it turns out great. I can also add hot water/milk to chocolate and it also turns out great. It's just honey that I'm having a problem with.
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Post by Brad on Apr 4, 2017 1:08:31 GMT -5
You're making ganache. You're not making chocolate, and other people don't get it to work effortlessly. Chocolate is a suspension of particles in a fat which crystalizes different ways at different temperatures. Adding any kind of liquid (water, milk, maple syrup, or honey) into the mix interferes with the fat's ability to form crystals that bond to each other. Your only option would be to dehydrate the honey - which incidentally has significant amounts of water in it (10-20% by weight)
Most of the people I've spoken with who try it dehydrate the honey first.
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Post by tinker on Apr 4, 2017 1:27:28 GMT -5
You're making ganache. You're not making chocolate, and other people don't get it to work effortlessly. Chocolate is a suspension of particles in a fat which crystalizes different ways at different temperatures. Adding any kind of liquid (water, milk, maple syrup, or honey) into the mix interferes with the fat's ability to form crystals that bond to each other. Your only option would be to dehydrate the honey - which incidentally has significant amounts of water in it (10-20% by weight) Most of the people I've spoken with who try it dehydrate the honey first. Hmmmm interesting. Why wouldn't that be stated in any of the recipes? That seems like a fairly crucial step to not be included. It really doesn't sound like that's what anyone is doing in the recipes I've read. Assuming that not everyone thinks to first dehydrate the honey, why wouldn't anyone say anything about that in the comments? And why did it work for me the one time when I hadn't dehydrated the honey?
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Post by Brad on Apr 4, 2017 17:30:51 GMT -5
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. Most content is written to a grade 6 level. With that in mind, consider the source.
Just because some people call it chocolate doesn't mean it IS chocolate.
As someone who definitely knows what I'm doing (I manufacture chocolate commercially and have been doing it now for many years), I can tell you definitively you are in my opinion making ganache. If you want to call your concoction chocolate that's your choice.
Whatever you call it, just make sure you have fun doing it!
Cheers Brad
Oh... one other thing: If you are using "raw" honey, your water content may be much higher than 20% which will cause even more problems. 20% is the commercial "safety line" for acceptability.
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Post by Sebastian on Apr 6, 2017 5:48:16 GMT -5
What's happening is due to the types of sugars found in honey as well as it's moisture content. The water in the honey dissolves some of the sugar in your chocolate, and makes a very thick, viscous syrup. The fructose and other high hygroscopic sugars in your honey 'suck in' more moisture from your environment, making it worse. Fluid honey will never, ever, ever be rheologically easy to work with in chocolate. Ever. The more you use, the worse it will be.
Some folks use honey that's been dehydrated and plated on a carrier such as maltodextrin, or they're using relatively small amounts of honey with relatively high amounts of an emulsifier, or they're just a glutton for punishment and live with a difficult to work with batch.
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Post by joetlnf on Apr 6, 2017 10:29:13 GMT -5
Though I suspect you're making ganache, as Brad already noted, John Nanci did an "Ask the Alchemist" post on flavoring chocolate with honey August of last year: chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2016/08/11/ask-the-alchemist-172?rq=HoneyThe post describes his process in detail. In short, he first dissolves the honey in vodka and then soaks the nibs in the solution for several hours before draining the excess and drying out the nibs on low heat. For drying, he used an oven set to 150F. I've used both an oven and a food dehydrator and both work fine, though the drying process is long (~16 hours). The key is the alcohol in the vodka that helps act as a desiccant to remove water from the honey.
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Post by hawkins090 on Aug 1, 2017 0:06:22 GMT -5
I have tried many recipes, but all them are failed.
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