artisanal thinking

This might explain why I feel compelled to do something different with each batch—I certainly try to keep things interesting for you chocolate lovers! As I wrote previously, the latest idea for inclusions came in Phoenix, munching dried apricots dipped in almond butter—trail snacks leftover from the Grand Canyon. This combination goes especially well in some moderately dark (you know…80%) Panamanian chocolate, because of the complimentary notes of apricot hidden in the terroir of the beans. While I don’t want to go all the way to tiny pieces mixed invisibly into the bar, I’m not sure if my rough hand at chopping the fruit and nuts is the best, when perhaps a finer mince would lead to improved mouthfeel and more ubiquitous flavor distribution—connoisseurs of the apricot+almond bar are welcomed advise.

Experiments with the other half of Bean to Bonbon

But the prospect of making only pure dark and posteriorly placed inclusion bars no longer excites me to the extreme degree it once did. Therefore to try my hand at something new, in this batch (the 25th!) I reserved the last of my cubes of Bill’s salted caramel and a pool of chocolate for submersible purposes. I don’t own and didn’t know at the time about the proper equipment—chocolate dipping forks. So I found two skewers in my kitchen and coated the caramel on the end of my lance, a tool which unfortunately left its imprint in the chocolates in the form of miniature geysers that erupted molten as the cooling coating of chocolate warmed the contents of its belly. No matter, with the addition of a couple grains of sea salt on top, these caramels taste just as sweet.

The dip did not stop there, however, as recalling the delicious Christmas favors of my sister-in-law, I used the remaining inclusions from the Grand Canyon bar as fodder for the pool of chocolate. Trying to give the experience of the bar in a smaller package, I took one strip of apricot, sandwiched it between two almond halves and sealed the embrace with a chocolate belt. Having a great time, whole apricots were soon within my grasp, so too meeting their fate drowned in chocolate. Bean to bar chocolate production is going smoothly, so I am excited about interacting with chocolatiers more, my feeble experiments aside, and seeing where bean to bonbon leads…I hope for the first waypoint to be a custom strawberry-balsamic truffle.

Midnight

Ever since visiting Claudio Corallo (the company, not the man) in Seattle and tasting their completely cacao 100% bar, I’ve been fantasizing about seeking the pure high myself. In batch #26, I finally built up the courage to abstain from adding sugar while grinding my cacao, and even if I am the only person who eats it, I’ve now molded chocolate liquor—a confusing name for cacao bean paste—into what is usually called baking chocolate (baker’s is actually a brand, not a modifier to chocolate).

Though bake you must not! While typical 100% chocolate is harsh dusty stuff that bears more resemblance to soil than the food of the gods, with care, one can make a dry chocolate that fumes with the saturated aroma of it’s cacao. It may remind you of dirt, but it shouldn’t taste like it! Eating unsweetened chocolate, unlike eating the earth, can be a pleasurable experience. If you really want to impress me (and your friends) with some braggadocio, try a bite! I’ll salute you for it.

Daylight

It must be due to cruel fate that my dear friend in CS is allergic to cocoa powder, and can’t enjoy chocolate with any measurable amount of darkness. She is immune, however, to the combination of cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder known as white chocolate. I promised her ages ago that when I finally secured a supply of milk powder and got my first shipment of cocoa butter, that I would make something she could enjoy. That day came and went, but since I had just made chocolate on the opposite end of the spectrum–100%, I felt the time was ripe for white.

So for batch 27, I began by melting cocoa butter over the stove which surprisingly turned it from an opaque yellow-white block to a transparently viscous yellow oil. I added a pound of milk powder, returning then to a thick opaque white-yellow liquid, finally a pound of sugar and heated the mixture to 160F, trying to burn off some of the milky flavor and perhaps imparting an additional caramel note. I ground the chocolate overnight and taking care to ensure that no residual dark chocolate colored my molds, formed the inaugural DHS white chocolate.

Save macadamia nut cookies, I’ve never eaten white chocolate, so I didn’t know what to expect, but the flavor is not bad! I used ‘natural’ cocoa butter (that unfortunately, I can’t yet make myself…, but which comes FT/OG from the Dominican Republic) which in opposition to ‘deodorized’ has all its strong and intense aroma intact, but still with just a mild flavor of caramel. The finished bar has that, and it also has an interesting finish—something fresh like mint. I would have liked to put caramel in some of these bars, but I was out, and it is wiser to make this first batch pure so we can really appreciate the individual quality of white.

Expansion Plans!

Details are sketchy…and I’m tired and this blog post is way overdue…and I don’t want to ruin the surprise…and ask me in person…but plans are in the works to see how far we can go with this chocolate hobby! Under the encouragement of an entrepreneurial CS friend of mine, I’ve been writing up and revising a business plan and between myself, my partner and my friend, we’ve raised a good portion of the money I’ll need to set up a bare-bones factory space. With the permit from the health dept. that I should be getting at the end of this week or early next, things are looking to accelerate somewhat and I’m very excited to be coming soon to a natural foods store near you! My joy is almost equal to that of the group of CS students who recently constructed an igloo in the courtyard behind Siebel and I feel as if I am exiting my cold Illinois winter dwelling to a sunny factory summer of chocolate.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 12:42 am and is filed under Business, Chocolate Making. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.