About Chocolate I

All about Chocolate Selecting, handling, and storing everyone’s favorite ingredient BY CAROLE BLOOM ’m crazy about chocolate, and I know I’m not Dark chocolates I alone. I spend a good part of my professional are complex like life working with chocolate, and off-duty I cer- fine wines.And like tainly enjoy my share of it. I’ve gained a better coffee, chocolate appreciation for chocolate by learning about its becomes darker in cultivation, processing, and various types. And of color and richer in course, knowing how to handle chocolate prop- flavor with longer erly in the kitchen only adds to the pleasures of roasting. this favor ite ingredient. CHOCOLATE GROWS ON TREES Chocolate may not seem like it comes from a plant, but its source is the fruit of the cocoa tree, Theo broma cacao. It’s primarily cultivated in equatorial regions of the world (where the climate is warm and hu- mid), although some chocolate is now being pro- When ready for harvest, the pods are cut from duced in Hawaii. the trees and the beans are removed along with Cocoa trees that grow in the wild can reach their membrane. The beans are placed on banana heights of up to sixty feet. Cultivated trees, how- leaves or in large vats, covered with leaves, and ever, are raised in the shade of tall, large-leaved left to ferment for a few days, while the membrane “ mother” trees, usually banana trees, rubber trees, evaporates and the beans darken in color. The or coconut palms. These mother trees keep the beans are then sun-dried for several days. After cocoa trees from growing much more than twenty drying, they’re packed into burlap sacks and feet tall, making it easier to harvest the beans. shipped to factories to be processed. As many as 5,000 tiny flowers at a time will bloom There are two main botanical varieties of cocoa on a cocoa tree; these flowers will develop in slow trees: criollo and forastero. The criollo tree is native succession into large, deeply ridged, football-size to Ecuador and Venezuela. It produces the pods that look something like large papayas. At any highest- quality beans, even though the trees are oward. H given time, the cocoa tree will simultaneously sup- small and difficult to cultivate. Forastero trees, port flowers, unripe green pods, and ripe orange or grown mainly in equatorial Africa and Brazil, yellow pods. Oddly, the pods will sprout not only provide about 90% of the world’s harvest from the branches of the tree, but all along the trunk of cocoa beans. The forastero bean is as well. Within the ripe pods, a milky-white, pulpy harsher and more bitter than the cri- membrane holds twenty to forty almond-shaped, ollo bean. Usually the two varieties Pouring chocolate photos: Sloan photos: chocolate Pouring ivory-colored cocoa beans. are blended to gether. Capuacu (Theo- FEBRUARY/MARCH 1995 Copyright © 1994 - 2007 The Taunton Press 41 broma grandiflorum), a relative of cocoa native to chocolate liquor. When cooled, it’s called cocoa the Brazilian rain forest, has re cently been discov- paste. Without the addition of sugar or more cocoa ered and is being cul ti vated in the Amazon. Capua- butter, it is at this point plain, bitter chocolate cu (pronounced COOP -oo-ah-sue) beans produce a ( also known as baking chocolate), which isn’t too rich, mellow-flavored chocolate with fruity under- pleasing to the palate. tones. Cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Separating chocolate paste’s two elements, raw cocoa powder MAKING CHOCOLATE and cocoa butter, is the first step in making finished After the cocoa beans arrive at a factory, they’re cocoa powder. Cocoa paste is pressed in large hy- roasted at 250° to 350°F for thirty minutes to two draulic machines to extract the cocoa butter. What’s hours. It’s during the roasting process that the left behind are dry cocoa cakes, called press cakes. fermented and dried beans begin to smell like These press cakes are cooled, crushed, ground, and chocolate. Each crop of beans is evaluated to de- sifted to produce cocoa powder. If the cocoa powder termine the precise roasting time and tempera- is “Dutch-processed,” the chocolate liquor is treated ture—two determining factors in the final flavor with an alkaline solution before it is pressed. This of the chocolate. Generally, the flavors are makes the finished cocoa powder darker, mellower, strengthened and become increasingly bitter with and more flavorful. The extracted cocoa butter is longer roasting times. saved and cooled into slabs for finishing other choc- Once roasted, the outer husk of the cocoa bean olate products. is cracked and blown away through a process called True chocolate. What we regard as straight winnowing, which leaves the bean’s inner nib be- “eating” chocolate is made from the chocolate li- hind. The different varieties of beans (nibs at this quor with the addition of more cocoa butter, sugar, stage) are blended to achieve the desired flavor. vanilla, and sometimes milk solids. The chocolate Although there are only two main varieties of cocoa is then kneaded or “conched” (pronounced trees, there are many variations of beans as a result KAHNCHT ). The conching process is performed by of geographic origin and because hybrids of the two a heavy roller that continuously heats, mixes, trees have evolved. Precise roasting times, roasting grinds, and stirs the chocolate to break down any temperatures, and blending ratios are the trade remaining bits of cocoa butter and solids, leaving secrets of every chocolate manufacturer. Combined, a homogenous, satiny-smooth, melt-in-the-mouth these factors are what make various brands of choc- texture. Conching is one of the steps in processing olate taste different. that helps keep the emulsion of cocoa butter and The blended nibs are simultaneously ground chocolate liquor stable. The longer the chocolate and heated to melt their natural cocoa butter, is conched, the smoother the final product will be. which turns the entire mass to a liquid known as This process, however, also weakens the choco- Where would bakers be without cocoa powder? Its wonder- fully mellow chocolate flavor is an essential ingredient in many confections, and it can easily warm up the coldest of nights when stirred into hot milk. estenbaum K Photos except where noted: Matthew noted: where except Photos 42 Copyright © 1994 - 2007 The Taunton Press FINE COOKING A choice of chocolates The best way to select chocolate is to taste it plain. A chocolate’s flavor won’t change when you bake with it, so be sure you find one that tastes good right out of hand. Smooth, creamy milk Some easy things to notice when choosing chocolate gets chocolate are the appearance and aroma. Is its flavor from the chocolate evenly colored and shiny? Does more sugar, less chocolate liquor, it smell rich and flavorful? When you break and added milk sol- the chocolate, does it snap firmly and clean- ids. ly? When you taste it, is it smooth, creamy, and does it melt in your mouth? The flavor itself should be generally pleasing and har- monious. The aftertaste, or finish, is also im- After conching, the chocolate is “tempered”— a process of heating, gradual cooling, and then portant: a good chocolate’s flavor will linger reheating. Tempering helps give chocolate snap in your mouth. and gloss; it also helps prevent “chocolate bloom,” Generally, the European brands of choco- in which the cocoa butter rises to the choco late’s surface. Any additional ingredients (nuts, for ex- late are the highest quality and best tasting, ample) are added at this point, and then the choco- although there are good American-made late is molded. brands. Some of the most popular European THE RANGE FROM DARK TO WHITE brands—and my favorites—are Valrhôna and Bittersweet and semisweet chocolates, collec- Cacao Barry (both from France), Callebaut tively called the dark chocolates, are made from (from Belgium), and Lindt and Tobler (both chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, sugar, and vanilla. The difference between these two dark chocolates from Switzerland). The most popular and, I is that more sugar is added to the semisweet. Bak- think, the best- tasting American brands are ing chocolate is also technically a dark chocolate, Ghirardelli and Guittard. These brands of but it has no sugar and can only be used in recipes that appropriately compensate for that. Couver- chocolate are available at gourmet and im- ture is dark chocolate with extra cocoa butter, ported food shops, cookware stores, some which gives it a high gloss. It’s ideal for the thin, major super markets, some department stores, glossy coatings of many candies—hence its name, which means “blanket” in French. Milk chocolate and through mail-order sources has less chocolate liquor and more sugar than the (see p. 45).—C.B. dark chocolates, as well as the addition of milk solids. White chocolate is made from cocoa butter, milk late flavor, so chocolate makers must be careful to solids, sugar, and vanilla. When buying white strike a bal ance between smooth texture and pro- chocolate, be aware that products called nounced flavor. Higher-quality chocolates are “summer coating” and “compound usually conched for longer periods of time—in coating” use a vegetable fat other some cases, as long as seven days. than cocoa butter as their base. Since Conching alone is not enough to keep the these products lack cocoa butter, they choco late emulsion stable. All chocolates have don’t taste like chocolate. lecithin, a natural fat, added to them during Using one chocolate for another.

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