Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 4, 2020 16:21:34 GMT -5
Fred, Hmmm... Butter Chocolate.... Maybe for a ganache, but I don't know if I'd want the additional flavor in my chocolate. (Although, maybe to robe caramels or toffee!) Still, it would be good to remember as I reformulate other recipes to use allulose. And I'm not sure there would be much reduction in lactose. They don't give the same data values that Alchemist John gave for the Heavy Cream Powder. The nutrition label for 1 Tablespoon shows <1g instead of 1g. Hard to tell from that.
I'm going to try a sugar batch for my wife with only Heavy Cream powder. I'm tinkering with the recipe a little to keep from having too much fat. I'm thinking of trying a 60% nibs / 5% c.b. / 25% sugar / 10% heavy cream - but that's a lot of nibs! The other is a 40/20/30/10, but that's 5% more fat from the cocoa butter and 5% more sugar.
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 5, 2020 19:27:48 GMT -5
Jim B. - Yeah, this where I'm a little confused on milk vs cream vs butter. If I clarified butter so I only had the fat and no solids, is that the same as the fat that is in whole milk or is it a different substance? I guess it depends on what you're going for: the flavor of milk chocolate depends a lot on lactose and butter fat. But if you want to eliminate the lactose altogether why not just add the fat? To be honest I'm not sure if that makes any kind of sense. I think that's really neat that you're experimenting with heavy cream! I think the 60/5/25/10 is going to be pretty strong because of the much lower lactose but it will be pretty creamy. 40/20/30/10 actually has 40% cocoa butter so you could drop this to something like 40/15/30/15 which would be 35% cocoa butter (like the previous one) + a little more butter fat or 50/10/25/15 which also has 35% cocoa butter, less sugar and a little more butter fat.
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 6, 2020 8:43:42 GMT -5
Fred, I ended up with a 50/10/30/10 recipe (with real sugar for my wife). I think it's a bit heavy on nibs, but it gives a better cocoa butter (and overall fat) percentage.
I don't know what percentage of lactose the butter powder has since the label only reads <1g per Tbsp. That could be 0.95g compared to the 1g (plus whatever fraction was dropped off) for heavy cream powder. The other consideration (not counting the flavor that is imparted) is the amount of milk solids. Again, I have no data for the butter. Some people have used ghee - I don't remember if in their chocolate or a truffle filling (I think Chip has mentioned it) - which is a powdered, clarified butter. But I don't have any experience there either. (I'm still getting started, prompted by not finding any decent sugar-free chocolate since my diabetes diagnosis.)
Anyway, with the heavy cream at 10%, I've easily got enough milk fat to "qualify" as milk chocolate, but only a little more than 3/4 of the "required" milk solids. So this would be a "dark milk" chocolate, if we could call it that, or perhaps a "dark cream" chocolate is more appropriate. I should be able to give you my wife's assessment late Saturday.
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 6, 2020 17:58:32 GMT -5
Jim B. - that sounds really good! I make a 50/10/20/20 recipe with whole milk I've been pretty happy with. Probably the same amount of butterfat since I think cream has about twice whole milk (2/7 vs 4/6 going by Hoosier Farm labels). Whole milk is almost 50% sugar (3/7 again from the label) so probably the level of total sugar is pretty close in this recipe as well. It should taste dark but good - running the melanger a while (24 hrs) I found also helps!
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Post by swamps on Mar 6, 2020 22:37:49 GMT -5
I hope you don't mind me jumping on this thread, i just asked the same type of question about the use of heavy cream powder on the General Chocolate Making at Home section. After a good peruse of the forum I managed to find this thread discussing the topic and i'm intrigued.
I'm also trying to make a sugar free-ish milk chocolate, i don't have a melanger so i'm substituting the nibs for some Callebaut easymelt 100% Cocoa Mass with a 54% cocoa butter (fat) content and mixing the other ingredients in over a makeshift double boiler (i'm hoping that works).
The sugar substitue is an easy one for me - bochasweet all the way, it tastes just like sugar and subs 1:1 in amount, baking, desserts, ice cream they've all truned out great flavour wise but i'm brand new to the chocolate making process so haven't tried it yet for a milk chocolate recipe - can't see why it wouldn't work out the same though.
When it comes to the heavy cream powder part i'm at a loss though, could you not just remove the cocoa butter ingredient altogether and instead rely on the high fat content of the heavy cream powder to provide the same effect. With the cocoa butter removed the amount of heavy cream powder added would increase to compensate the fat level and therefore so would the amount of milk solids making it a truer milky, milk chocolate.
I really have no idea what i'm talking about when it comes to the heavy cream though so i'm going to keep a keen eye on this thread and hope you guys get some good results with the recipies you're trying.
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 7, 2020 1:52:29 GMT -5
swamps - I actually tried the same thing before I bought a melanger. It will kind of work, but you'll have a pretty gritty chocolate. If you use enough cacao (nibs), then you don't have to add cocoa butter but that is at 75% or more so you don't have much room for both sugar and milk. If you are using a melanger you need the total fat percentage to be around 37% or so (or more) for the machine to operate correctly. You might be able to add butterfat instead of cocoa butter - I'm not sure how much you can add though before it makes the chocolate too soft.
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 7, 2020 7:57:25 GMT -5
Fred, Swamps, I just read on another thread that ghee (a clarified butter powder) might affect the melting point and therefore change the ability to temper properly.
Fred, I'll be pulling the cream batch out of the melanger in about an hour, so I'll let you know later today how the tempering and molding goes. So far, it's really creamy! A wonderful, luxurious texture but it may be tricky to temper. It's flowing nicely but that thick dreamy texture on the tongue makes me wonder if it's too viscous.
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Post by swamps on Mar 7, 2020 9:07:03 GMT -5
Thanks fred, yep i got the same advice from Jim B - looks like i'm in the market for a melanger hopefully your experience has helped to avoid the same gritty chocolate experiments. As far as the fat is concerned i am lacking in the knowledge needed to comment i think. To me fat is fat, and following that logic if you were to take a lump of cocoa butter and add it to some milk powder what you would end up with is a high fat content milk powder - in essence heavy cream powder. Therefore when adding heavy cream powder you are essentially adding two of the previous ingredients and should not have to add any more cocoa butter since that fat it would add is already in the heavy cream powder. However as Jim B mentions if this is a different kind of fat with different qualities it probably changes everything and messes everything up especially it sounds on the tempering stage - so much for fat just being fat lol. I was going to use Anthony's Goods Heavy Cream Powder which is 72% butterfat so i will do a little searching to see if someone has done a butterfat for cocoa butter subtitution previously and how this has affected the mix but really i'm holding out more hope in learning what i need by keeping an eye on this thread to see what you guys get up to with your mixes. Thanks again for the advice mate
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 7, 2020 10:23:11 GMT -5
Swamps, I guess it's the expense of buying cocoa butter that has you looking for an alternative? The thing is, you WANT cocoa butter! It is the formation of the right kind of crystals in cocoa butter that enables you to temper chocolate! When you introduce other fats, you start to interfere with that ability. Too much "other" and your chocolate may not hold it's shape, or have that "snap" which we associate with the good stuff. Maybe you've noticed the difference in texture between milk and dark chocolates. Milk is softer. Moving on to milk fat.... Think about the difference between regular liquid milk and heavy cream and how they are processed. When milk is not homogenized, the cream rises to the top. This is separated from the milk and added back in differing quantities to create skim (0% cream), 1%, 2%, or whole milk (at 3-4%), and half & half, light cream, and heavy cream. It's the addition of this cream that changes the product. Milk powder and heavy cream powder are dried versions of those products, usually through a spray-drying technique. The extra cream increases the percentage of milk fat (among other things, I imagine) which happens to drive down the percentage lactose. This is great for diabetics, but it does have its complications - especially in labeling! What constitutes a chocolate product is very regulated, so you may not be able to make "milk chocolate" with heavy cream! (But what you make may be very yummy!)
Hey, I'm still learning, and am by no means an expert! (If I'm off, folks, please correct me!) But let me encourage you to start with traditional ingredients. If you need sugar-free, I can help a little with reformulations. I've been working on a formulator to adjust for less (or more) than a 1:1 sugar substitution. Some substitutes may require more or less fat to work correctly, so some trial and error are still involved. The good news is you can usually fix it. Tempering can be done over and over until you get it right! Just melt it down and try again! And keep lots of notes as to what you did and how it worked (or didn't)!
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Post by swamps on Mar 7, 2020 15:06:44 GMT -5
Thanks again Jim B, i hear what you're saying. It's not that i necessarily want to remove the cocoa butter for any reason but rather want to add enough heavy cream powder to produce the same milky flavour that the milk powder would have provided. However adding that much heavy cream powder will by default raise the ratio of fat so high that I need very little if any cocoa butter to provide any more fat content. Now I see the cocoa provides a lot more functions than just adding to the overall fat content I will need to rethink my approach. Thanks again for the heads up on that. Tempering I will mostly do with either a dry heat chocolate melter or my sous vide and like you say just keep adding a sprinkling of this stuff www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003QNVCEG until i get it right. Regarding the more traditional ingredients and ratios can I ask a really stupid question regarding terminology, is “Cocoa Liqueur” as listed in the Alchemy's homemade chocolate formulator tables the same as “Cocoa Mass” as in this product I plan to use; www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01M65D7J8. Probably a dumb question but had to check – it’s a pretty key component to get wrong lol. Thanks again for the help
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 7, 2020 16:00:23 GMT -5
Cocoa Liquor, Cocoa mass, and nibs would all be the same with the formulator. If you pre-heat nibs (roasted and winnowed, don't use raw ones at this stage), you can add them directly to the melanger. I put this on the other thread: use the sous vide to make silk for tempering. It really helps, and it's a better use of the sous vide in the tempering process. See John's videos.
Jim
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 7, 2020 16:18:15 GMT -5
Okay, the results are in... The 50/10/30/10 all cream batch tempered well. "It is definitely a dark chocolate, but without the aggressive 'bite' one might normally associate with dark. But it also has a rich creaminess that is a delight on the tongue." So says the Mrs. - her favorite so far! 👍👍😁
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Post by swamps on Mar 7, 2020 17:11:38 GMT -5
Congrats on the all cream batch Jim B it sounds absolutely decadent, glad to hear the tempering went well I’m definitely adding (stealing) the mix ratios for my notes - it’s probably going to be one of the first ones I try. This version was a normal sugar version correct?
btw i had a look for the tagatose but couldn't find it available anymore in the UK, i know nunaturals used to do a 100% pure powder but its been discontinued and nowadays the only vender i see using it is Damhert and they mix it into their own brand of sweetener along with isomalt and erythritol. I will stick with bochasweet unless it proves unusable during the process for some reason at which point I’ll start delving back into the sugar substitute game.
Right, enjoy basking in your success, I’m off to watch some more chocolate alchemy vids.
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 8, 2020 0:24:41 GMT -5
swamps - the melanger is a game changer! You won't regret it - I got the premier one from Amazon and have really enjoyed using it. John the Alchemist has a nice article on using different fats with chocolate: chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2015/06/18/ask-the-alchemist-120I am a fan of milk chocolate and I really like the combination of cocoa butter and milk fat. Jim B. - I'm really intrigued with your results and I'll have to play around with my cream powder some more. I'm currently trying out whole goat milk instead of cow milk to see what it's like. This is with the beginners 25/25/25/25 recipe My initial taste tests are inconclusive - the goats milk seems a little "flat" to me, but I'll let you guys know how it works (out on a different thread). You may wonder "why goats milk"? Well, it was relatively cheap on Amazon and I wanted to give it a shot (I tried it a lone time ago but I don't trust those early experiments).
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 8, 2020 1:06:18 GMT -5
BTW, I think clarified butter is basically 100% butterfat. So if you wanted to just add butterfat and no other milk solids (including latctose) you could just add clarified butter. For the 25/25/25/25 recipe, 25% whole milk adds (roughly) 8% butter fat (whole milk is about 30% fat). So you could do a 25/25/42/8 recipe with 25% nibs and cocoa butter, 8% clarified butter and 42% sweetner. Whole milk is about 43% sugar (lactose) so the total sugar in the 25/25/25/25 recipe is 36% which is less than 42% in the 25/25/42/8 recipe. Using Allulose this might be okay, but for other sweetners increasing the clarified butter to 15% (25/25/35/15) might work without messing up the temper.
The only real loss is the lactose flavor - maybe there's a sugar free option that will give you that?
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