Comments on: It’s Not Me, It’s You

By: Ted Niceley

Ted Niceley — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:09:55 +0000

Hi Nina!
What a fantastic blog!!!!
Your Hermes reportage was fantastic but I’ll write about that over there sometime.
I just wanted to say I’ve had the same experience with El Rey Bitter (Bucare?) and even their white, which tastes so awesome but is hard to work with ( for me at least) also.
It seemed like it went grainy really fast when it was melted , even following their melt table ( I was doing a creme anglaise type of cremuex) and eventually I just bagged using El Rey.
This was awhile ago though and I have a friend who did some consulting work with them and I think they reconfigured their methods.
I blend chocolates often when I make ganache and will use Cocoa Barry and Valrhona or Cocoa Noel, etc.
I Love Guittards French styles of Pistoles, find some of them more exceptional then others but god, they’re great!
I’ll finish off with I love Valrhona and their Grand Cru so much it’s the only chocolate I’ll chop a block of when I can’t get their ‘feve’s’.
Again, GREAT BLOG!!!

By: Nina

Nina — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 01:17:24 +0000

Yeah, it’s a little weird, though — I’ve been looking at online chocolate sellers, and many of them have a lot of Callebaut, but little if any Cacao Barry.

I’ll try the blending…. It’ll be a good way to use the different kinds of chocolate I bought for sampling.

By: veronica

veronica — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:56:00 +0000

Cacao Barry makes some interesting chocolates. Just so you know, Callebaut and Cacao Barry are the same company. If you can’t find the perfect chocolate- why not try blending? We use a milk-dark blend sometimes and add a little cocoa butter for an added creaminess.

By: Nina

Nina — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:54:33 +0000

Veronica - Yeah, this anglaise recipe is a little different than others that I’ve used — I bet using all cream and no milk helps to prevent curdling.

Thanks so much for the chocolate tips. Valrhona seems to be the top choice for just about everyone for confections (with good reason — it’s fantastic)… but I’m trying to figure out what would be best for the assortment of candy bars that I want to make, along the lines of the Malted Caramel Candy Bar. Since the bars would be filled with varying flavors/textures and much larger than a single truffle, I’m thinking that my chocolate should be on the cheaper side and have a relatively neutral chocolate flavor. I don’t want to use inferior chocolate, of course, (and I’ll leave Hershey chocolate to Hershey bars), but I am thinking along the lines of Guittard and Cacao Barry (for dark chocolate). I like Scharffen Berger as eating chocolate, but I think that the flavor is a little too strong with berry flavors to be neutral (and it’s a little pricey and doesn’t come in discs), so I probably won’t use it after all… unless maybe for a berry-flavored bar. Even Guittard is a little more fruity than I’d like, so I’m leaning towards Cacao Barry for now, which has a more balanced flavor to me…. but it’s a little harder to find than other brands… so I do want to keep tasting chocolates and experimenting.

For milk chocolate, Scharffen Berger is my top choice, b/c it’s creamy and strong on chocolate flavor. I also like Valrhona, but it’s just too expensive.

I’ll definitely order some Amedei to nibble on, and as Bella recommended above, will check out Felchlin.

And ah yes, the trickiness of chocolate… I’ve been reading about it almost exclusively recently and experimenting with it… and my mind is swirling!

By: veronica

veronica — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:55:33 +0000

Oh, I’ve made anglaise a thousand times! I just could never get a tamarind one- I used to use a concentrate and there might have been something else in there that caused it to curdle. I am tempted to wrangle this beast again with the recipe you provided. Thanks!
I too have visited Scharffen-Berger’s factory, but as an insider who works in the business- I can tell you that they do not make the bulk of their chocolate any more. Their outfit in Berkeley maybe produces 20-30% of their total production- the rest being outsourced. This is fairly common in the chocolate business and by no means meant to imply that they make inferior chocolate. It’s is mucher cheaper and a lot less of a headache to hand your recipes over to another production outfit! If you are truly interested in making chocolates- check worldwidechocolate.com for supplies- I recommend using the Valrhona Caribe and Guanaja- plus they come in discs. And if you have any money left over- spring for some Amedei for personal consumption. Interesting company and you should be able to find an article about them in the April 2006 Food & Wine. All I know about chocolate is that it’s much trickier than I ever expected! and I’m sure you are learning this lessson yourself…

By: Nina

Nina — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:06:33 +0000

Veronica - I’ve never had a problem with tea ganaches before — black, green, or herbal. Recchiuti has a section about them in his book, and he doesn’t mention anything about problems with emulsifying them. A tamarind anglaise is a pretty diff’t animal. Any anglaise curdles if it is cooked too long. This recipe for tamarind anglaise seems to work http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/104140

I could see how making ganache at home is diff’t from making it with a Stephan VCM. Emulsification at home doesn’t generate nearly as much heat. For milk and white chocolate, I bring the cream to a lower temp than for dark, for the reason that you mentioned.

I went to the Scharffen Berger factory last week. They’re still doing production in the factory the same way that they’ve always done it, even though they were bought by Hershey. They do some packaging off site, and since their factory is dairy free, milk is added to make milk chocolate off site.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 05:14:52 +0000

Keep the comments back and forth, Nina and Veronica - I’m learning a lot! Thank you!

By: veronica

veronica — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 03:13:39 +0000

Well, I can help you with some of this. We make ganache in 150lb batches using a Stephan VCM- it sucks the air out so we get nice dense ganache. We never heat the cream over 90 b/c that is what my mentor has told me to do. I think it has something to do with raising the temp of the chocolate- plus, when we use agitation on the Stephan- it brings up the temp of the whole ganache. When I have made truffles at home, I bring cream to a simmer and then let it cool to lukewarm for about 10min. The temperature of our chocolate is always 113F however, we have the option of heat on the VCM, so each recipe is different. If you look on the back of a package of Callebaut or Valrhona- you will notice that not all chocolate is tempered to the same degrees. Darker chocolates tend to be heated to higher temps b/c the higher temp is needed to melt fat particles for a smooth deposit. Is this too much? So when you are at home, working with chocolate, don’t employ the same tempering method every time. And I recommend using Valrhona- they have some very interesting single origin chocolates. I will say that Scharffen Berger is outsourced these days- they don’t oversee their own production anymore. I honestly think it was the tea that broke your ganache- it might have been too acidic- the tannins (it was a type of black tea, yes?) could have prevented emulsification. The only reason I say this is because years ago I tried to make a tamarind creme anglaise and it broke (curdled) every time.

By: Nina

Nina — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:40:13 +0000

Veronica — Thanks for the advice. I’ve been reading a lot about chocolate and ganache this past week, so I appreciate getting advice straight from an experienced source.

That quote is about the grainy block of chocolate that I had bought. I’ve used El Rey and Callebaut just fine in the past for tempering, but on the two occasions that I wrote about, I couldn’t get them to work. I’ve been making ganaches this week with chocolate I bought at Scharffen Berger, and they’ve been fine…. but I do want to perfect the technique as much as possible.

I always use a laser thermometer for my chocolate (I stir as I take the temp) and heat it to 115F . For this, I infused a 1/4 tsp in Lapsang Souchong tea in 5 oz cream for 5 mins, and then strained it through a double layer of cheesecloth over a fine strainer.

Why shouldn’t the cream be heated above 90F? The lowest I’ve read is 115F, and others generally say to bring it to a boil and let it cool a bit; one book said that boiling it decreases the percentage of water (like the clarified butter — great tip). What temperature do you have your chocolate at (I assume you melt it) when emulsifying? Do you use a rubber spatula, a whisk, a food processor, or an immersion blender?

Adding the cream a little at a time sounds like a great idea. It reminds me of a method in Medrich’s book for fixing a broken ganache by emulsying the broken ganache a little at a time into some simmered cream… but gradually emulsifying to begin with makes so much sense.

By: veronica

veronica — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:58:41 +0000

El Rey and Callebaut are used by professionals- I use them in my chocolate confections- I work for Vosges Haut-Chocolate. Your ganache probably broke because of the tea,
you wrote:
“I sighed deeply. I looked at my depleted supply of chocolate… and start to think that the cause of it all was a mistake on my part, but an even bigger mistake on the chocolate’s part. The chocolate had seemed “snappy” enough, but I hadn’t tasted it. I chop a piece off and put in on my tongue. It’s dry. It doesn’t melt easily. When it does, it feels almost curdled. I bite into it, and encounter graininess, with some crunchy particles.”
was this your ganache? or the chocolate before you worked with it? if this was your ganache- the graininess is due to burning the chocolate- try using an instant read thermometer and don’t heat above 113F. What kind of tea did you use- did you brew with water first? Also, don’t heat your cream above 90F. I recommend also adding cream in small batches- emulsifying a little bit at a time. And in the future- if you use butter- use clarified- the process of clarification removes water (which I’m sure you know is detrimental to your chocolate.)