Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / Let's talk chocolate
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October 23, 2008 by Tien Chiu

Let's talk chocolate

With the cloth and the sandpaper beams shipping out today, weaving is pretty much out for the next week.  So let’s talk chocolate.

I have brainstormed a list of 35-odd flavors that I want to try, some in multiple variations.

Clearly, doing these one at a time is going to take forever.  But let’s not despair.  With the exception of the brandied cherry cordials, all these are truffle centers.  One makes truffle centers as a three-step process:

  1. Steep flavorings in hot cream.
  2. Add boiling, flavored cream to chocolate and stir.
  3. Add flavorants and liqueurs.

So I categorized the flavorants as steeped flavorings or added flavorings, and came up with this matrix:

Steeped flavors

Chocolate options

Added flavors

Ginger

White chocolate

Honey

Cardamom

Dark choc, fruity

Rosewater

Allspice

Dark choc, “regular”

Muscat grape syrup

Passionfruit

Dark choc, “smoky”

3 types of Armagnac

Chrysanthemum tea

Dark choc, “floral”

Toffee liqueur

Licorice root

Milk chocolate, caramelly

Bailey’s Irish crème

Anise

Milk choc, malt overtones

7-8 types of Scotch

Pear

Poire William (pear)

Plain cream

Port wine + raisins

(Yes, I have four kinds of dark chocolate.  Actually I think I have seven – representing almost all of the Valrhona offerings – and each is subtly different.  But I think I will only use about 4 in centers.)

This is still pretty complicated, as one could get about a thousand different flavor combinations just from these ingredients. But it makes the process much quicker:

  1. Boil 9 different batches of cream, one for each steeped flavor.
  2. Mix the steeped flavors together as appropriate for each flavor mix.
  3. Pour over the appointed chocolate + butter.  Stir.
  4. Add flavorants as appropriate.

This should let me get all the flavor combinations I want in a relatively simple matrix.  I may simplify things somewhat by just using my “standard” chocolate (Valrhona Extra Bitter, or sometimes Pur Caraibe) for most of the dark chocolate centers and switching out to a more refined selection at production time.

Beyond that, I also want to experiment with formulations of truffle centers.  Basically, to make truffle centers you add chocolate (cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter), cream, butter, and sometimes a little invert sugar (preservative and texturizing agent).  I don’t use invert sugar for the simple reason that it comes in 22-lb tubs.  That wouldn’t necessarily stop me, but I also don’t feel that sugar adds much to the flavor, so I typically substitute cream for the sugar.  Shortens the shelf life, but I tell everyone to eat them within 10 days anyway, so…

Anyway, the firmness of your truffle center is largely a function of proportions of liquid to cocoa butter in the finished product.  I have a formulation from Frederic Bau’s Au Coeur des Saveurs that is perfect for chocolates to be dipped, but this is typically firmer than you’d want for a truffle center in a molded chocolate.  I monkeyed with the formula last year and got a result that I mostly liked, but I want to try some more scientific experiments this year.  So I will mess with that a little bit, too.

All of which sounds like a lot of work, but if you want to learn, you have to study.  And I’ve wanted to do this sort of systematic study for YEARS.

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Filed Under: All blog posts, food, chocolate

Previous post: Black cashmere finished
Next post: Black cashmere, wet-finished

Comments

  1. Karen says

    October 23, 2008 at 9:17 am

    I love reading all about your chocolates and your weaving.

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