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Post by mistacandy on Feb 18, 2008 8:29:03 GMT -5
Today I made some milk chocolate. While i was taking it out of the santha, it was really thick!It wasn't runny or anything it was thick! I do not know if that is right or if there is something wrong. I can barely temper it or pour it on anysurface! My recipe is below 21 oz Cocoa Liquor 16 oz Cocoa Butter 32 oz milk powder 32 oz sugar Add the cocoa butter and cocoa liquor into the santha then slowly add the dry ingredients while santha is running. So, i emailed John and he said Regardless, the cocoa butter percentage seems too low by about 10%. For the recipe listed I would estimate another 10-12 oz would put it where it needs to be, but that is just an estimate. You have to have extra cocoa butter when making a milk chocolate due to the extra dry ingredients you are adding. You can alternatively add more liqueur, although it won't help as much since only half is cocoa butter. Also, you can add milk fat (clarified butter) in lieu of cocoa butter. Many ways and combinations are possible, but the main trick is to get more fat in there to let is smooth out. How I would go about it is pick my ingredient and start adding it in 1 oz increments until the batch flows smoothly, then you get to see how it changes So, I added just four ounces more cocoa butter and it turned out PERFECT! It was smooth and creamy, and tastes great! That is all it needs, just a little more cocoa butter!
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nate
Neophyte
Posts: 12
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Post by nate on Feb 18, 2008 19:39:54 GMT -5
> So, I added just four ounces more cocoa butter and it turned out > PERFECT! It was smooth and creamy, and tastes great! That is all it > needs, just a little more cocoa butter!
Glad to hear yours turned out. I've got my first batch of milk chocolate in now, and it seems to be doing well so far.
My impression is that you want to have roughly equal portions of milk powder and cocoa butter in the recipe: while we think of milk as creamy, in milk chocolate it acts more like the cocoa solids. Since the milk powder is being used to replace part of the cocoa liquor, you want the replacement to have roughly the same 50% fat ratio. Does this seem accurate?
Also, I saw that Sebastian commented somewhere that the milk fat from using whole fat dry milk doesn't really count here, since it is 'bound'. Is there some way to 'free' it? I used WFDM for this batch, since I happened to have some good tasting stuff available.
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Post by Brad on Feb 19, 2008 3:27:44 GMT -5
Mistacandy;
I'd like to make a couple of suggestions:
I noticed that you did not use any lecithin. Next time, try adding up to 0.5% liquid lecithin first. You will notice a very quick fluidity change.
My understanding of milk chocolate, and also my tests with combinations of skim and whole milk powder in fact DO make a difference. For a premium eating chocolate, your TOTAL fat content, which includes milk fat, should be around 35-40%.
Noting that whole milk powder is usually around 30% fat, your original recipe is right in the ball park (10% from liquor, 16% from butter and 11% from milk powder for a total of approximately 37%). You probably just needed a little lecithin.
If you check the total fat content of most eating milk chocolate, you'll see fat content very close to 37%.
Note that adding too much lecithin also has the opposite effect of making the chocolate thicker.
Brad
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Post by ripvanwinkle on Feb 28, 2008 10:01:06 GMT -5
brad, what percentage fat is the liquor? Is this fat after separating out some with the Champion or is that (separated) fat recombined with the liquor and then used in the recipe?
I have been hesitating about making milk chocolate because of this question.
That's OK though because most of my guinea pigs love white chocolate so I can make that until the question about the liquor is settled.
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Post by daniel on Jul 1, 2009 13:02:39 GMT -5
liquor is about 1/2 fat.
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Post by garth on Jul 29, 2009 20:58:24 GMT -5
The lecithin is there to stabilize the sugar from bloom. Chocolate and sugar chemically don't get along very well. Sugar being hygroscopic likes the water in the air better. So if you add it it is happy with the chocolate mass. Too much can also be bad. I would suggest using percentages. As Daniel said, liquor 1/2 fat, so your cocoa butter and dry milk looks to be 1/2 fat using your weights. That's fine. Now take 15-20% of that total weight and that's what you add for additional cocoa butter, so Approx 60 oz. before sugar would be 9oz. extra cocoa butter for a 15% couverture. So now you have a total of about 69 oz. now add your sugar % I like 70% so 10% of 69oz would be 6.9 oz times 3 to make 30% sugar 70% chocolate so a little over 20 oz. sugar.
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