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Post by cacaomagic on Aug 5, 2007 16:21:56 GMT -5
Anyone out there tried throwing some whole nuts into the Santha whilst it's refining the cacao? I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work and would certainly add an interesting dimension to the flavour.
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Post by Brad on Aug 6, 2007 3:00:28 GMT -5
I've done exactly that with some roasted hazelnuts, and the flavour was beautiful - in fact one of my favorite creations to date! You must however keep in mind that the nuts contain a substantial amount of fat - fat which doesn't temper like cocoa butter. Having said that you need to make sure you take this into account when you calculate the overall fat percentage of your chocolate, but also the threshold where too many nuts will cause the chocolate to no longer temper properly.
You probably don't want to go any higher than about 9% of the total volume per weight for your "nut" fat.
As an aside, I've spoken with a couple of very senior chocolate quality control people for large factories, and they've both told me that some chocolate factories in Europe will dispose of extra nuts and so forth in the grinding process of their chocolate to increase the overall volume of the batch. The amounts they dump in are negligible, but at the same time enough to force them to put warnings of "may contain nuts" on their packaging.
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Post by cacaomagic on Aug 6, 2007 10:35:47 GMT -5
Thanks Brad, that's very useful and I look forward to commencing with experiments! Yes, I've also heard that kola nuts get mixed with cacao beans for similar reasons. Problem with this is that it adds caffeine to a chocolate that would otherwise contain next to no caffeine. Least we're all keeping it real, eh?
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Post by ripvanwinkle on Dec 26, 2007 14:28:14 GMT -5
I thought the Kola nuts sounded super - then I pulled up Kola in Wikipedia and was surprised to see that they may be carcinogenic. Since there are about 125 species maybe the one we would want to use would be safe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_nutI like the idea. Anyone with more info re safety?
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Post by princessvaliant on Dec 26, 2007 21:26:02 GMT -5
I've decided to put nuts in my chocolate only after it's been removed from the Santha. So many folks are allergic to nuts, and may have very serious reactions to even the smallest amount. I'm concerned that any amount of nut residue might affect subsequent batches.
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Post by jamescary on Mar 30, 2008 3:52:01 GMT -5
I've decided to put nuts in my chocolate only after it's been removed from the Santha. I think about this, too. I'm wondering if we could order separate Santha parts for this purpose (bowl + rollers). Then, you could have one for chocolate only and another for allergen containing chocolate.
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Post by eric101 on Jun 5, 2008 10:24:19 GMT -5
FWIW, I have put fresh roasted (and ground) coffee in my Santha with liquor (about 2-3 oz per a 7 lb batch at 70% - no extra cocoa butter) and got a real nice Mocha dark chocolate - my wife really liked it (she is the taste consultant and very hard to please at that).
Eric
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Post by Brad on Jun 5, 2008 13:58:38 GMT -5
Neat idea. I think I'll try that.
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Post by reelchemist on Jun 7, 2008 16:38:21 GMT -5
Yeah thanks for the rough formula I have been asked by friends to do something like that but I don't lilke coffee so didn't know where to start.
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