|
Post by fredrik on Sept 23, 2019 7:18:21 GMT -5
Hi, does anyone have a generic recepie for making dark milk chocolate (55%) without adding extra cacao butter?
//Fredrik
|
|
|
Post by Ben on Sept 23, 2019 11:54:08 GMT -5
It's definitely possible to grind up a 55% dark milk chocolate with no added CB. But, you'll probably find it to be too thick to temper and mold as there's not enough fat to keep it flowing. I used to make my 65% dark milk chocolate with no added CB and found it pretty difficult to work with, and it obviously had more fat than a 55% would. With just 55% nibs, your overall cocoa butter content is only going to be 27-30% of the finished chocolate.
But, if you want to try it, you just need to play with the balance of the sugar and milk to make up the other 45% of the chocolate to get the flavor your want. Something like this would be a good starting point:
55% cacao 15% milk 30% sugar
|
|
|
Post by Brad on Sept 23, 2019 18:15:47 GMT -5
To add to what Ben wrote above, one other thing to consider is the fat content in your milk. If you are using a higher fat powdered milk, you may also want to consider using a lower fat powdered milk, and then adding clarified butter into your recipe. For example:
Let's say you are using a powdered whole milk with 28% milk fat, and your recipe calls for 1kg of powdered milk. There is essentially 280g of useable fat trapped in the powdered milk, which in its current form won't contribute to the fluidity of your chocolate. You could substitute 620g of skim milk powder, and 280g of clarified butter and get a much more fluid chocolate without using any more cocoa butter, and still keeping your recipe pretty much the same.
The only "gotchya" that this substitution will cause is a softer chocolate that is harder to temper, as the milk fat is no longer trapped in the powdered milk crystals, and can interfere more with crystalization of the cocoa butter.
Cheers. Brad
|
|
|
Post by fredrik on Sept 30, 2019 13:31:32 GMT -5
Thanks Ben, I'll give that a try. What would the "normal" recepie - with added cacao butter - be? I'd like to do them both and compare the result.
|
|
|
Post by Ben on Sept 30, 2019 14:12:09 GMT -5
I don't know what the 'normal' formulation would be (or even if there is such a thing), but you'd probably have enough fat if you switched 55% nibs to 50% nibs and 5% cocoa butter. That is probably about the minimum amount of added cocoa butter needed to have a workable viscosity at 55%. You could also easily go higher with the CB and do 45% nibs and 10% CB.
Keep in mind that some of this will depend on the amount of fat that's naturally in the nibs. Some beans are lower fat and would therefore need more added to make some formulations.
|
|
fred
Novice
Posts: 144
|
Post by fred on Dec 8, 2019 17:57:37 GMT -5
fredrik - I've been definitely thinking along these lines - how do I avoid adding cocoa butter to my milk chocolate? I started out with John the alchemists recipe which is a great starting point and for a while I was afraid to mess with it: sugar 25% whole milk 25% butter 25% cacao 25% vanilla beans seeds My last batch I wanted to max the amount of cacao but still have a strong milk presence. I actually really like this: sugar 20% whole milk 20% butter 10% cacao 50% vanilla beans seeds So that doubles the cacao from John's recipe and you get a pretty strong chocolate presence with a nice "milk finish" that I really like. Another thing to think about: the "zero cocoa butter" dark chocolate I've made is very simple: sugar 20% cacao 80% And it is quite strong - the people I know who like it are pretty hard core dark chocolate lovers. It is definitely a "tasting chocolate". The commercial dark chocolates are more like this: sugar 30% butter 10% cacao 60% Compared to the 80% above, this is both pretty sweet and pretty mild in terms of the cacao presence. It's definitely more of a crowd pleaser than the 80%. What I mean to say is that it is hard to avoid completely using cocoa butter without getting a fairly strong (or maybe even astringent) result. I have made a 70% bar with this: sugar 30% cacao 70% but it was a little crumbly (maybe that was a fluke? 35% fat should be enough...). So, sorry to ramble! But there is one idea I have wondered about and I'll let you know if I end up trying it: Milk is slightly sweet (you know, "lactose" is a sugar) so how about this? milk 20% cacao 80% Using skim milk should be a little sweeter (25g of carnation skim milk powder is 13g of sugar - whole milk power would be something like 10g of sugar). So with skim milk you have maybe 10% sugar which is not bad. With whole milk this might work well (form the extra fat): whole milk 30% cacao 70% So those would be 2 ingredient milk chocolate for milk chocolate (and I guess "low carb") purists! =) I'll let you know if I try either of these, but I think they may be too strong. Even the 50% cacao milk chocolate above is somewhat astringent for a milk chocolate lover. I actually like it and it goes really well with coffee (lol!). -Fred
|
|
|
Post by Chip on Dec 8, 2019 18:21:01 GMT -5
You could also use Ghee instead of milk. Or just purify some butter and remove the water and mild proteins and make your own ghee.
|
|
fred
Novice
Posts: 144
|
Post by fred on Dec 8, 2019 19:27:27 GMT -5
Chip - I was wondering about this - what impact does adding clarified butter have on chocolate?
|
|
|
Post by Chip on Dec 8, 2019 20:01:41 GMT -5
fred, Adding ghee, which is clarified butter, gives a slightly "warmer" taste but also adds more fat to the recipe. So if you are trying to add some fat content to your chocolate and don't want to use cocoa butter (but for the life of me I don't know why you wouldn't want to use cocoa butter), you can use ghee. It thins the chocolate out a bit, like using cocoa butter and also adds fat, like cocoa butter. It makes it easier to temper than just using a plain nibs/sugar recipe, which as Ben has stated makes a somewhat thicker recipe.
|
|
|
Post by Chip on Dec 8, 2019 20:02:51 GMT -5
fredrik, I am just being totally nosey here, but why wouldn't you want to add cocoa butter?
|
|
fred
Novice
Posts: 144
|
Post by fred on Dec 9, 2019 11:42:32 GMT -5
Chip - Sorry for taking this a little off topic, but I like the idea of a chocolate with some butter flavor (kind of like a desert). Do you think that would come through after adding 5% (ghee or clarified butter)? Every now and then I think about dipping cheese in really dark chocolate... It would have to be refrigerated but I think it might work.
|
|
|
Post by Chip on Dec 9, 2019 12:02:42 GMT -5
fred, Ghee is used for its fat content, but also for getting the butter flavor without the milk by-products and water of using straight butter, which we can't use in chocolate. I have thoroughly enjoyed the very faint hint of buttery flavor when using ghee.
|
|
fred
Novice
Posts: 144
|
Post by fred on Dec 9, 2019 12:31:35 GMT -5
Chip - thank you, that is an awesome idea! I'm not so familiar with the flavor of ghee though of course I've had clarified butter. I'll have to check it out!
|
|
|
Post by mark on Dec 11, 2019 22:24:20 GMT -5
Fredrick, I once did a 65% liquor, 25% MP, 20% sugar dark milk. It was quite thick but I was able to temper and mold it. It had quite a different taste compared to the one with cocoa butter, some people found it quite appealing. Of course at those low percentages of liquor the fat content of your beans will become relevant, maybe I was lucky that the beans I was using at the time had quite a high fat content.
|
|
|
Post by Ben on Dec 12, 2019 9:29:05 GMT -5
Mark, your percentages add up to 110%.
|
|