Post by fred on Aug 25, 2018 23:02:15 GMT -5
My main motivation for making my own milk chocolate is twofold:
1. Most milk chocolate I've bought is too sweet. I would like to lower the sugar as much as possible without ruining the taste. I'm sure I'll have to experiment.
2. I have a hard time finding milk chocolate I like the taste of. The one I really like is Lake Champlain solid milk chocolate. My only complaint is that it is slightly too sweet.
So I tried something I suspect many many people have tried before me: I got some cocoa butter, cacao powder (supposedly criollo), whole milk powder and sugar (I tried to get the best ingredients I could find on Amazon). I melted cocoa butter, added cacao powder, sugar and milk powder and stirred. It looked kind of like chocolate and tasted like decent grainy chocolate. In solid form it wasn't great. Re-melting and going at it with a hand blender slightly improved the results but not by a lot. And then I read about conching.
So now I am thinking of buying a "Premier Chocolate Refiner - Melanger" from Amazon, but given the cost I really need to make sure this is a good idea.
* It sounds like I should at the very least start from cocoa nibs (although maybe I got lucky with my cacao powder?).
* I also read that I can do everything with the Melanger - that is I don't have to buy an even more expensive champion juicer. If I do that though, is there a two step process of refining and then conching?
* Do people have any favorite recipes for milk chocolate? I'm going to try and reduce the sugar and I'd like to keep a light milk flavor (but not too much caramel).
Thanks for any advice!
-Fred
EDIT: Doh! I just saw the Alchemists milk chocolate making video. That answered most of my questions - especially since he uses basically the same machine and starts from nibs!
1. Most milk chocolate I've bought is too sweet. I would like to lower the sugar as much as possible without ruining the taste. I'm sure I'll have to experiment.
2. I have a hard time finding milk chocolate I like the taste of. The one I really like is Lake Champlain solid milk chocolate. My only complaint is that it is slightly too sweet.
So I tried something I suspect many many people have tried before me: I got some cocoa butter, cacao powder (supposedly criollo), whole milk powder and sugar (I tried to get the best ingredients I could find on Amazon). I melted cocoa butter, added cacao powder, sugar and milk powder and stirred. It looked kind of like chocolate and tasted like decent grainy chocolate. In solid form it wasn't great. Re-melting and going at it with a hand blender slightly improved the results but not by a lot. And then I read about conching.
So now I am thinking of buying a "Premier Chocolate Refiner - Melanger" from Amazon, but given the cost I really need to make sure this is a good idea.
* It sounds like I should at the very least start from cocoa nibs (although maybe I got lucky with my cacao powder?).
* I also read that I can do everything with the Melanger - that is I don't have to buy an even more expensive champion juicer. If I do that though, is there a two step process of refining and then conching?
* Do people have any favorite recipes for milk chocolate? I'm going to try and reduce the sugar and I'd like to keep a light milk flavor (but not too much caramel).
Thanks for any advice!
-Fred
EDIT: Doh! I just saw the Alchemists milk chocolate making video. That answered most of my questions - especially since he uses basically the same machine and starts from nibs!