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Post by darrenw on Apr 26, 2024 12:44:02 GMT -5
Hey At the risk of getting cancelled in the bean to bar community, I have to ask is anyone else considering using cocoa butter substitutes/replacers/equivalents in their chocolate due to the ridiculous price of cacao beans and cocoa butter at the moment? I realise that in America for chocolate to be called chocolate it has to have 100% cocoa butter and in Europe/UK 5% cocoa butter replacement is allowed, but here in Indonesia there are no such rules. Beans and cocoa butter here have risen to almost 4 times the price last year and it is almost impossible to source cocoa butter for small companies. Raising our prices 200% is not going to work so I have been considering replacing the cocoa butter with a CBE and using CBR or CBS for white chocolate etc. I have even taken a sneak peak at the less than glamorous carob bar industry as a possible side venture using CBR. Anyone have any experience with this or facing similar problems would love to hear about it.
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Post by lyndon on May 3, 2024 10:08:09 GMT -5
The bottom line is that no substitute comes anywhere close to the quality of cocoa butter, especially at 100% replacement (I use 3% sunflower oil in my vegan milk bars to replacement the milk fats). You would be better off raising your prices 200%, because if you swapped your cocoa butter for shea or palm etc, nobody would want to buy your chocolate anymore. The only bar I can think of is the now discontinued Caramac, which used palm, its very sticky and very soft, and was never really marketed as a white chocolate.
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Post by Chip on May 3, 2024 11:21:16 GMT -5
The bottom line is that no substitute comes anywhere close to the quality of cocoa butter, especially at 100% replacement (I use 3% sunflower oil in my vegan milk bars to replacement the milk fats). You would be better off raising your prices 200%, because if you swapped your cocoa butter for shea or palm etc, nobody would want to buy your chocolate anymore. The only bar I can think of is the now discontinued Caramac, which used palm, its very sticky and very soft, and was never really marketed as a white chocolate. Absolutely spot on. I once, and only once, tried to use palm oil and it was a total disaster. Cocoa butter is cocoa butter.
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Post by darrenw on May 4, 2024 10:08:04 GMT -5
yeah the regular palm oil made from the palm fruit pulp was never going to work. They make the cocoa butter substitute from the oil of the palm kernel mixed with other things and is either hydrogenated or non-hydrogenated (whatever that means). They have it down to a quite fine art in terms of its melting point etc so that very much resembles real cocoa butter . But obviously no substitute despite its name.
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