musings

Obsession: dark milk chocolate

Chocolat Bonnat Surabaya Milk Chocolate
~ Amber Latner

So, last night at around 11:30 p.m., this happened:

Cocoa Runners Invoice

What stands out right away as you look at this invoice?

Ok, other than the expensive shipping. And that it’s priced in British Pounds (thanks a lot, Cocoa Runners). And, yes, it’s weird to order ten chocolate bars in the middle of the night. Ok ok, besides all that.

I was hoping you might notice that eight of the ten bars listed above are of the dark milk chocolate variety.

But, what IS this dark milk chocolate stuff she speaks of?

A little industry background here will help. The FDA mandates that any bar labeled “milk chocolate” must contain at least 10% cocoa mass (btw, guess how much cocoa mass is in a Hershey’s Bar: 11%). In contrast, anything labeled “dark chocolate” must contain at least 35% cocoa mass (“bittersweet” chocolate usually contains >50%), and no more than 12% milk solids.

So, what happens if a chocolate bar contains more than 50% cocoa solids (cocoa mass + cocoa butter) AND more than 12% milk solids? Well… that’s dark milk chocolate. It’s a hybrid chocolate style that straddles the line between dark and milk without truly belonging to either category.

I know, TOTAL CRAZINESS. Mind blown!

I realize I might be the only person on earth who thinks the concept behind dark milk chocolate is so fricking cool. I know most people don’t sit around geeking out about chocolate for multiple hours a day. But if you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you like chocolate a lot. So do yourself a favor and pick up a bar the next time you get a chance. And for vegans out there, coconut dark milk chocolate is a real thing, and it’s delicious.

So, what should I expect from a dark milk chocolate? 

It will not be as sweet as a typical milk chocolate, since some of its sugar has been replaced by cocoa solids. But it will be creamier and smoother than most dark chocolate of comparable cocoa percentage (and do try to find the highest percentage of cocoa solids you can when you hunt for a dark milk bar — 60% is about right, higher is better).

Think about coffee — also a naturally bitter and acidic substance made from roasted seeds. When you add cream to coffee, the dairy fat and milk solids in the cream cut a lot of the bitterness and acidity of the coffee, allowing other flavor notes to shine through. Similarly, milk powder acts as a flavor modulator in chocolate, bringing out some flavors and muting others.

I’m hopeful that the dark milk chocolate fad will eventually improve the range of quality chocolate products available to consumers and spur the development of a new market for intense, flavor-forward milk chocolate. While we’re waiting for that to happen, I’ll be happily nibbling my way through the massive stack of chocolate bars arriving on my doorstep any day now.

 

 

 

Five myths about chocolate

Fruit of the Cacao Tree
~ Amber Latner ~ 2 Comments

There is so much misinformation out there about chocolate. This post tackles some of the most common misconceptions.

1) Myth: chocolate contains caffeine

There is absolutely no caffeine in chocolate. What chocolate does contain is theobromine, a mild nervous system stimulant that is chemically distinct from caffeine and affects the human nervous system in subtly different ways. Weird ways, too (anyone need a cough suppressant?)

It’s also thought to be less addictive than caffeine (although from personal experience I’m not so sure I believe that).

2) Myth: cocoa comes from a bean

How many times in my life have I wondered what exactly is chocolate. A nut? A bean? A fruit? Even when I’ve looked it up online, it was far from easy to figure this out.

So, here’s the answer: chocolate is a seed. Or more precisely, chocolate is made from the kernels of seeds found inside the fruit of the cacao tree.

Fresh Cacao Seeds and Pulp
A fresh cacao fruit contains 30-50 seeds surrounded by white pulp

3) Myth: cacao and cocoa are the same thing

Not exactly. The seeds of the cacao tree’s fruit are referred to as cacao (ka·cow) until they’re fermented, after which point they are called cocoa. The product we buy and eat in its solid, powder and nib form is ALWAYS cocoa. We don’t eat unfermented cacao beans. Ever.

Which brings me to….

4) Myth: it’s possible to make raw chocolate

Almost all cocoa products that market themselves as raw are actually not. That includes those products that call themselves “raw cacao.”

How do I know this? Cocoa seeds are fermented, and fermentation temperatures can run as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit — well above the 104-118 degree maximum temperature of a raw food product. With very few exceptions*, manufacturers claiming to sell raw cocoa products are selling you a product made from beans that were heated above 118 degrees before ever leaving the farm. I would be VERY skeptical of any cocoa product marketed as raw.

Cocoa beans drying in the sun
Cocoa beans drying in the sun

That said, it’s possible to make chocolate from fermented, unroasted cocoa beans or beans roasted at extremely low temperatures. Raaka Chocolate has been successfully doing it for years. In fact, it’s likely that most raw chocolate companies are actually selling bars made from unroasted beans, not raw beans.

If you buy cocoa products made from unroasted beans, be aware that cacao is fermented in very unsanitary conditions, and cocoa shells are often contaminated with salmonella or worse. Roasting the beans before removing the nibs (kernels) is the most effective way to ensure the final product is safe for consumers. While Raaka may have found other ways to sterilize nibs, I wouldn’t trust an unknown or online manufacturer to be as careful.

5) Myth: roasting cocoa beans reduces their antioxidant properties

Cocoa powder, chocolate and roasted cocoa beans
Clockwise from the left: cocoa powder, chocolate and roasted cocoa beans

Also untrue. While roasting cocoa beans may change their antioxidant profile — increasing some antioxidants and reducing others — it does not necessarily reduce their total antioxidant load, especially when care is taken to roast the beans at relatively low temperatures, as most small-batch chocolate makers do.

Regardless of the health benefits, roasting cocoa beans vastly improves their taste, giving them that distinct chocolatey flavor we’ve come to expect. Think about how different raw walnuts taste from toasted walnuts, for example, and you’ll have some sense of how roasting cocoa beans might alter and enhance their flavor.

*Big Tree Farms in Bali makes cold-pressed cocoa butter from cocoa beans that are fermented and roasted at temperatures no higher than 115 degrees Fahrenheit, according to its website. 

How small is the chocolate world?

Criollo cocoa beans from Venezuela
~ Amber Latner ~ 2 Comments

Print of cocoa tree and fruit

You know when something happens that’s such a coincidence, you can’t help but stop to marvel at it? And then blog about it? (Or is that just me?)

Last week I won a copy of The Chocolate Tasting Kit at a chocolate industry panel at the Smithsonian. The panel moderator, cookbook author Monica Bhide, offered to give a free copy of the book to the first person who could correctly answer the question, “what does theobroma cacao mean in Greek?” After some (gentle) elbow prodding from my husband, I raised my hand.

In unrelated news (or so I thought), the next day I was emailing a thank you note to the very kind author of this inspiring blog about chocolate. It’s the kind of blog I would love to create someday (maybe when I actually know what I’m doing). I’d emailed her a question and she’d responded right away, checked out my blog, and even offered me some great tempering advice. So helpful.

And then I noticed her email signature: “Eagranie Yuh. Author, The Chocolate Tasting Kit.”

Those who work in the chocolate world (chocolate makers, chocolatiers, competition judges, bloggers, authors, educators and shop owners) all seem to know each other. If you follow one of them on Twitter, it’s likely that person is following dozens, maybe even hundreds of other industry participants. Many of them are friends. They meet up at industry events and award shows, or they speak on panels like the one at the Smithsonian. They eat each other’s chocolate, and sometimes they even buy shipping containers of cocoa beans together. I remember being so surprised to learn that one of my favorite craft chocolate makers has been using the exact same Dominican cocoa beans as another well known chocolate maker because they had gone in on a shipping container of beans together.

It’s understandable that the American craft chocolate industry is so close-knit. It’s tiny: there are only a few dozen American craft chocolate makers, at most. And the hurdles for these small business owners can seem insurmountable. Equipment and certifications are expensive, chocolate is a temperamental, unpredictable product, and American consumers are still somewhat uncomfortable spending $10 for a chocolate bar. Most chocolate makers have no illusions about becoming rich making chocolate. Usually they’re in the business because they love it.

With so many obstacles to success, chocolate makers NEED each other. They need each other’s advice, inspiration and support. And they need the industry to be successful, as a whole. Which means they need their competitors to be successful. For this reason, they are a welcoming, transparent, hyper-communicative group of business owners. They praise each other’s successes and promote each other’s events. They give advice freely, even to newbies like me.

Word "kakao" traced in cocoa powder

Emailing a Canadian blogger only to later discover she’s the author of a book I’d just won at a D.C. chocolate panel is exactly the kind of coincidence I should learn to expect in such a close-knit community. And yet, like so many other experiences I’ve had as I begin my chocolate education, I can’t help but feel like it’s some kind of cosmic cattle prod directing me deeper and deeper into this crazy passion (obsession?) of mine.

For the record, theobroma cacao is Greek for “food of the gods.”

Volunteering at Undone Chocolate

Conching machine or melangeur
~ Amber Latner ~ 1 Comment

So I actually wrote this post more than a week ago but put off posting it because I was waiting for pictures.  But given the cataclysmic blizzard we’re expecting this weekend, I probably won’t get out to Union Kitchen on Sunday as planned, so pictures will have to wait.

So long story short: last Friday was amazing. Adam (founder) and Liz (chocolate maker extraordinaire) at Undone Chocolate showed me around their facilities at Union Kitchen, a D.C. incubator for food industry start-ups. What a cool place to work — there were folks all around us baking cupcakes, making pastries, smoking meat… I had no idea D.C. had such a strong  and vibrant entrepreneurial community.

But back to chocolate. Adam has a Ph.D. in plant biochemistry and originally studied the antioxidant properties of chocolate in the lab before he began making chocolate out of his tiny New York City apartment. In addition to being extremely talented and driven, he’s also a fantastically nice guy.

Adam agreed to let me volunteer in his chocolate kitchen in exchange for the opportunity to get some hands-on chocolate making experience. It’s amazing, interesting work, and Liz encouraged me to get involved in every step of production, from polishing and filling molds on the vibrating table to working with their massive tempering machine (55 gallon capacity!). I even got to help empty the enormous, 550 lb melanger, which looks something like this:

Conching machine or melanger
Chocolate melangeur (Photo credit: Mark Chamberlain via Rochester City Newspaper)

I know — yum, right?

On my first day, Liz sent me home with little baggies of chocolate samples from previous chocolate batches they had made… Nicaraguan 74%, Dominican 72%, wild Bolivian (don’t remember the % cocoa, but it was delicious)… my favorite was their extraordinary (highly addictive) spice chocolate flavored with cardamom, cinnamon and cayenne.

Undone Chocolate spice bar

My experience at Undone has been AWESOME, I can’t wait to go back. I’ve become such a fan of their chocolate too. Unlike most chocolate on the market, including high-end chocolate, Undone’s is made with only two-ingredients: cocoa and sugar (both organic). No emulsifiers, no added flavors like vanilla. Their chocolate is so intense, almost fruity, and yet so silky, without too much distracting sweetness.  That they can create chocolate like that with their limited small-batch equipment is so impressive.

I’m so bummed that I ate through all my Undone Chocolate samples right before the snow storm! How am I going to survive? I may head to Yes Organic while the streets are still drivable and pick up a few spice bars to tide me through.

For more on Undone Chocolate, check out this 2015 piece in the Washington Post. And to for the sake of transparency, I’m not getting paid a dime for this glowing review of their chocolate. It’s really that good.

 

 

Welcome

dark chocolate
~ Amber Latner ~ 1 Comment

I’m embarking on a journey into the mysterious world of chocolate making. Through the professional chocolatier program at Ecole Chocolat, I’m learning to temper, mold, flavor and decorate chocolates in my home kitchen. Eventually I’ll learn to make my very own chocolate bars from scratch.

Hopefully this blog will serve as a resource for others embarking on similar journeys, providing a window into the strange, fascinating world of chocolate making and the close-knit industry that has grown up around it.

Full disclosure: I also hope this blog will help me meet others who share my passion for chocolate making (and chocolate eating). So please give me a shout, introduce yourself, and feel free to provide feedback on anything that could make the blog better.

I’m incredibly grateful to the wonderful folks at Undone Chocolate, one of D.C.’s only bean-to-bar chocolate makers. I’ve been lucky enough to volunteer there, and that hands-on production experience has been invaluable. Adam Kavalier (company founder) is a walking encyclopedia of chocolate making knowledge, and I can’t put a price on his generosity for letting me get my hands dirty (and my clothes, and my apron, and my shoes) in his chocolate kitchen.

For those without a local chocolate making factory at which to volunteer, I’ve found the instructions on John Nanci’s Chocolate Alchemy blog invaluable, and I’m sure I’ll refer back to them many, many times as I continue my chocolate education.

Happy nibbling,

Amber
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