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Post by mozambrooklyn on Mar 20, 2019 17:12:47 GMT -5
Hello everyone, thank you to this website for making me feel brave enough to make my own chocolate. I bought a melanger two weeks ago. I just finished making my second batch of chocolate using allulose, one bittersweet and another 70% dark. (FYI- I do not detect a cooling effect in the finished tempered chocolate but I also added 1/8 tsp of pure monkfruit powder in addition to the allulose. I didn't tell at work that the chocolate had allulose in it, (unless they asked) and no one said anything or complained about stomach upset.))
I want to try to make both milk chocolate and white chocolate using allulose, but I was wondering if it is possible to use heavy cream powder and allulose to substitute some of the milk powder as well, to lower the overall sugar content of the bars. I wanted to try to make milk chocolate by substituting 50% of the milk powder with allulose and heavy cream thereby reducing the actual net carb content by half. What do you think? I am not sure how to go about the substitutions. Any advice would be great.
Thanks.
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SansSucreBaker
Neophyte
Ready to start a batch of white choco!
Posts: 3
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Post by SansSucreBaker on Mar 22, 2019 20:42:05 GMT -5
Hi there! I am in the same boat - I just bought a melanger and loving it. I have made two batches of "cream chocolate" with allulose and heavy cream powder (hoosier hill farms brand). I just do a 1:1 swap and it's awesome! I will probably experiment with adding some milk powder for that dairy sweetness but still keeping the carb count low.
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Post by cathil on Jul 29, 2019 19:27:27 GMT -5
I feel like I wrote this post!! It's exactly what I am playing around with. I am a strict Low-carber. I made my first 2 batches with only nibs, butter & erythritol & they were very average. Needed grinding longer. I just made my last batch with Allulose & had it in the grinder much longer & it was so much nicer. How is your 'sugar-free' chocolate making going?
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SansSucreBaker
Neophyte
Ready to start a batch of white choco!
Posts: 3
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Post by SansSucreBaker on Jul 30, 2019 11:17:12 GMT -5
I've been happy with my chocolate but I think the fat content from cream may be hindering good tempering. I want to dry a dark chocolate next to see if it behaves better. Keto and non keto people have been fans of this chocolate! I've used it in baking and candies. Still learning along the way. 😁
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Post by ochocolat on May 12, 2020 11:53:14 GMT -5
Hi everybody,
My experience with Allulose has not been a good one. I get stomach issues, but the combo of Erythritol, Inulin, and Monk Fruit goes really well. I've made milk chocolate bars with this blend and they came out great, with whole milk powder....but I am low carb so heavy cream powder is the way to go. My one experiment with heavy cream was a complete disaster, ended up with a thick paste that I could not use. Are you using the same ratios for heavy cream powder as whole milk?, or lowering the cocoa butter content?...any feedback you would give me would be a great help. Thanks!!!
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Jim B.
Novice
Newbie
Posts: 118
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Post by Jim B. on May 23, 2020 19:22:22 GMT -5
My recent attempt at a milk-cream chocolate was a major fail! It did not temper well (-at all) even when using 1% Silk. I did manage to get it out of the molds, so I can try to temper it again. (It did taste good, though!)
I've noticed something during the last few batches that were semi-sweet, or dark milk.... I tried adding the allulose well after I started the refining process in the melanger. Probably after a couple hours. It seems to lower the viscosity when I do that. (The Spectra also starts spitting chocolate all over the place! - I may need to increase or decrease the batch size so that the wheels don't toss so much up and out. Looked like a food fight last time!) This time I loaded the allulose earlier, and the mass was thicker - like earlier batches.
Anyway, my guess is that there might be too much milk fat to temper easily. If anyone can help with some experience I would appreciate it.
The mix was: 20% Nibs; 25% Cocoa Butter; 38% Allulose; 17% Heavy Cream! Total Cocoa Butter would have been about 35%, with a total fat content of close to 47%.
Maybe next time I'll cut back on the cream while still trying to hit "milk" chocolate targets.
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Post by ochocolat on May 25, 2020 22:19:18 GMT -5
Yea Jim, heavy cream is definitely tricky, I told you my first attempt was a total fail as well. The mixture turned into a thick paste that the melanger could not handle. It all went into the trash. So far, it's whole milk powder or bust.
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zeva
Neophyte
Posts: 6
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Post by zeva on May 26, 2020 10:26:17 GMT -5
Regarding the percentages of these 'sugars'/cocoa butters etc, does anyone have any suggestions. I do not mean to say share your secrets. Rather, as far as I am aware, the Erythritol, Inulin, and Monk Fruit etc can be traced back to manufacturing by pharmaceutical companies (who make these for food chemists/formulators). It is those pharmaceutical companies that may have information, suggestions, links etc. Usually food scientists work for them. Also, has anybody checked the expired patents (google advanced search) and noticed any similarities (sugars, percentages). After all some of these sugars are 20 years old. Patents only last for a handful of years, I believe. So they may show up. Tell me if I have any of this wrong.
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Post by ochocolat on May 26, 2020 13:41:28 GMT -5
Regarding the percentages of these 'sugars'/cocoa butters etc, does anyone have any suggestions. I do not mean to say share your secrets. Rather, as far as I am aware, the Erythritol, Inulin, and Monk Fruit etc can be traced back to manufacturing by pharmaceutical companies (who make these for food chemists/formulators). It is those pharmaceutical companies that may have information, suggestions, links etc. Usually food scientists work for them. Also, has anybody checked the expired patents (google advanced search) and noticed any similarities (sugars, percentages). After all some of these sugars are 20 years old. Patents only last for a handful of years, I believe. So they may show up. Tell me if I have any of this wrong. I've done a bit of googling on the subject and found nothing. The correct quantities are anyone's guess. My inital idea came from Lily's chocolates who uses that exact combination of sweeteners....(they use Stevia instead of Monk Fruit). The folks from Keto and Co. have a similar formulation called Wondrose that they are supposedly patenting...and it works very well on baked goods....their Brownies and Muffins are out of this world.
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Post by ochocolat on Jun 7, 2020 10:22:08 GMT -5
My recent attempt at a milk-cream chocolate was a major fail! It did not temper well (-at all) even when using 1% Silk. I did manage to get it out of the molds, so I can try to temper it again. (It did taste good, though!) I've noticed something during the last few batches that were semi-sweet, or dark milk.... I tried adding the allulose well after I started the refining process in the melanger. Probably after a couple hours. It seems to lower the viscosity when I do that. (The Spectra also starts spitting chocolate all over the place! - I may need to increase or decrease the batch size so that the wheels don't toss so much up and out. Looked like a food fight last time!) This time I loaded the allulose earlier, and the mass was thicker - like earlier batches. Anyway, my guess is that there might be too much milk fat to temper easily. If anyone can help with some experience I would appreciate it. The mix was: 20% Nibs; 25% Cocoa Butter; 38% Allulose; 17% Heavy Cream! Total Cocoa Butter would have been about 35%, with a total fat content of close to 47%. Maybe next time I'll cut back on the cream while still trying to hit "milk" chocolate targets. Hi Jim, Have you tried using Whey Protein instead of heavy cream powder?. Just wondering if it would behave better than the heavy cream??
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Post by ochocolat on Jun 28, 2020 15:18:30 GMT -5
Have you tried 50% heavy cream and 50% whole milk powder??
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Jim B.
Novice
Newbie
Posts: 118
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Post by Jim B. on Jun 29, 2020 7:03:41 GMT -5
I've considered doing the 50/50 mix with heavy cream and whole milk; I understand that Chip and others have had great success with that! But, my goal is to reduce the sugar content as much as possible. Using allulose as my base sugar takes most of it out of the equation, and heavy cream has much less lactose than whole milk. I made a 56% cocoa mix a few days ago trying a few different tricks along the way. It did temper well - if a little slowly (needing a short kick start in the fridge) - and it worked well. Total sugar (Lactose, really) is about 0.5g per ounce! The mix was 42% Nibs (Columbia Arauca 2019), 14% Cocoa Butter, 30% Allulose (with about 0.55g monk fruit), 14% Heavy Cream. I used another 1% Silk to temper. I ground the nibs alone for a couple of hours then added the cream powder; this still kept the cocoa butter (from the nibs) at over 35%. After another couple hours, I added the melted cocoa butter (with the monk fruit mixed in) and allulose - both, a little by little. This kept the melanger from throwing chocolate all over the kitchen, and had the effect of lowering the viscosity making tempering much easier. The flavor intensified as a day or two passed and the texture was very creamy with no discernable grittiness. I think the way I added the ingredients was a major factor in eliminating the tempering problems I had with the earlier batches. With the milk solids at nearly 13% and milk fat at about 10%, I think it would qualify as a milk chocolate - but I'm not sure the regulators would go along with that! As a side note, were I to use the 1/2 milk/cream blend the lactose would double to 1.0g per ounce (and - because of my diabetes - I'd only be able to eat half as much)! 😋😁
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Post by ochocolat on Jun 29, 2020 22:33:27 GMT -5
I've considered doing the 50/50 mix with heavy cream and whole milk; I understand that Chip and others have had great success with that! But, my goal is to reduce the sugar content as much as possible. Using allulose as my base sugar takes most of it out of the equation, and heavy cream has much less lactose than whole milk. I made a 56% cocoa mix a few days ago trying a few different tricks along the way. It did temper well - if a little slowly (needing a short kick start in the fridge) - and it worked well. Total sugar (Lactose, really) is about 0.5g per ounce! The mix was 42% Nibs (Columbia Arauca 2019), 14% Cocoa Butter, 30% Allulose (with about 0.55g monk fruit), 14% Heavy Cream. I used another 1% Silk to temper. I ground the nibs alone for a couple of hours then added the cream powder; this still kept the cocoa butter (from the nibs) at over 35%. After another couple hours, I added the melted cocoa butter (with the monk fruit mixed in) and allulose - both, a little by little. This kept the melanger from throwing chocolate all over the kitchen, and had the effect of lowering the viscosity making tempering much easier. The flavor intensified as a day or two passed and the texture was very creamy with no discernable grittiness. I think the way I added the ingredients was a major factor in eliminating the tempering problems I had with the earlier batches. With the milk solids at nearly 13% and milk fat at about 10%, I think it would qualify as a milk chocolate - but I'm not sure the regulators would go along with that! As a side note, were I to use the 1/2 milk/cream blend the lactose would double to 1.0g per ounce (and - because of my diabetes - I'd only be able to eat half as much)! 😋😁 Interesting, how long did you run the Melanger for?
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Jim B.
Novice
Newbie
Posts: 118
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Post by Jim B. on Jun 30, 2020 6:50:04 GMT -5
This time I ran it a little longer - for about 27 hours. But that was more for flavor than grinding. It was very smooth much earlier.
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Post by ochocolat on Jun 30, 2020 12:22:12 GMT -5
This time I ran it a little longer - for about 27 hours. But that was more for flavor than grinding. It was very smooth much earlier. Do you pre grind the nibs....to shorten the time in the Melanger?
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