Forum Activity for @Thomas Forbes

The new batch with the Cafiesa nibs and butter turned out pretty nice. Easier clean up and less waste. I took a pound and a half of it, untempered and sliced, along with 50 cherry based truffles rolled in coconut, 30 bon bons with the cherry ganache in the middle, and a half a pound of molded and tempered from my last batch, to school today and the students loved them. The more or less 70 nibs, 20 sugar and 10 butter is a little creamy for me and because it was water like it's consistency, I think 23 hours was too much.

Thank you everyone for the advice and input.

wow - that's a terribly inefficient way to make cocoa butter! It'll be < than a 50% recovery even on the best days i suspect.

The other thing to consider is that consistently fermenting 100lbs can be tough - it's not much mass to work with, and as a result your mass temperature will be limited, and your bean surface:atmosphere surface ratio will be huge - not sure what your intent was for these 100 lbs (if it was just for butter or not), but ultra small scale fermentations can be a tough road to travel.

Thankyou. I just did a temper on another batch I did with some paste my wife just brought back from the DR. I tried the seed method for first time and had trouble getting all the seed to melt after I lowered the temp to 94 degrees. I guess it has to be grated rather than chopped. I haven't really liked the results of my table tempering lately and will have to soon get a machine.

The women I work with in the DR take about 4 lbs. of chocolate paste and boil in a big pot of water. The butter rises to the top and you spoon it off to capture it. What is left is thrown away. I did a small batch myself last summer in the DR and was able to get maybe 4 oz of butter from 24 oz of paste.

I bought 100 lbs of fermented beans from a farmer's cooperative to process with one group of women and had one of the local farmers ferment a 100lbs and the other group of women processed that. This batch was so bad I did not even bring any home with me. I asked the women to cook out the butter and they "said" they could not get any out. I ended up giving it to them and did not have to pay for the processing. Just lost out on $130 for the 100 lbs of beans.

When I got up this morning the chocolate in the machine was still very runny and after I got home from work it was at 23 hours. I will wait for it to cool down but it is much different then what I was making from the other paste. Lighter, and with the butter, creamy.

Thank you so much.

What do you mean in the first paragraph of 'cocoa butter being cooked out rather than pressed'?

Your formulation looks to be 70.8% nibs, 11.6% cocoa butter, and 17.5% sugar. roughing the nibs out at 50% fat, this puts your total chocolate recipe at 47% fat - which is on the high side (and in all likelihood it's a bit higher as DR beans will almost assuredly be more than 50% fat). It's hard to quantify what "very liquified" means in text - but at 47% fat, one can expect to have a pretty fluid chocolate even w/o lecithin.

If you're happy with the flavor and the physical properties 'work' for how you intend to use the chocolate, i would'nt worry about it. if it's too fluid for you, take 7-8% of the cocoa butter out and massage the recipe until you hit your sweet spot.

Sounds like a bit much cocoa butter, not enough sugar, not wrong though, that formulation is I think similar to what Pralus does as standard - from memory, I haven't got a bar with me to calculate it. I usually do a dark choc as 60 nibs, 30 sugar, 10 cocoa butter. This is a very standard choc formulation and gives you a good basis from which to tweak your recipe to suit the origin. It gives a chocolate that pleases most tastes too, not too sweet, not too bitter.

As for fluidity of your mixture, it won't matter, it will just grind down quicker as the grinder will spin faster and since it is all cacao fats it will temper fine.

For the last two months, I have been making small batches of chocolate using paste made by two different women cooperatives in the Dominican Republic. I have been breaking up the balls of paste and softening them up on a double boiler and slowly adding it my Cocoa Town melanger with between 20 and 40% pure cane sugar and/or honey powder. After playing around with 7 - 24 four hour conches/grinds, I like the 24 hour. It is fairly thick as it is being worked in the melanger due to only have cocao butter which was cooked out rather than pressed so I am hesitant to use it.

Received a small order of cacao nibs and butter from Fine Cacao Products who have a warehouse or something in West Hackensack, NJ and sell products made by Conacado's factory in the Dominican Republic called Cafiesa. I had the opportunity to translate for a USAID paid consultant on contract for Equal Exchange for three days last summer. Learned a great deal and I know exactly how this stuff is processed.

I added 1.5 lbs of nibs (much different process heating them up and adding them to the machine), 4 oz of butter and 6 oz of pure cane sugar. After two hours this stuff was very liquified. I am tempted to add some more nibs or milk powder. Any advice is appreciated.

Have a good trip Keith! While in Prague you can go and check Klara`s shop ( http://www.cokoladovacukrarna.cz/ ) in case you ran out of "choco stock"

Thank you for this reply, Irina. It appears that chocolate occupies all the "extra space" in Chloe's diet. I'm with you -- still very much an apprentice. I'm off to Prague today -- any suggestions about chocolatiers there? To be safe, I'm taking some Pralus with me.

I have been Chloe's assistant for almost 6 months now, being able to "supervise" her eating habits. I read her book long before I started my internship with her and I really hoped the person in the book is the real her. I have been pleased to find out that it is all true.

She has a small figure,a very energetic personality, a lot of tact and loads of care towards friends andanyone who is passionate or trying to helpher main love:"chocolate". She eats much more chocolate than a "normal" person does, but only fine chocolate; and yes she does spit when she does not like plus she explains what is wrong with that choco so this makes it really interesting!I like it when she does not like things!

She also claims she is not a sweet personalthough she is always with her box of Manjariat work filling it up every half an hour and on top she is still slimmer than I am.This is Chloe!

It seems that thekey to her fit body shape is that sheis super active: sheis an early riser, waking up at around 5-6am and going to the pool every day in the morning.Even when she is away during conferences she goes to swim daily.Also, she never mixes food with chocolate, because she likes to have some appetite and clean taste buds when tasting chocolate- she eats 3 meals a day of quite healthy and equilibrated food (and in between there is lots of choconibbling).

Whether she eats exactly one pound of chocolate every day, I cannot tell you exactly but, I can tell you thatit is closer to 300g than 200g with no doubt!

I on the other hand I have around 50g per day...i am still an apprentice!

Bonne journe a tous!

These are amazing lists. I have tried some, quite a few, and appreciate the information.

I looked at your ratings. Ow. You've been at this a while. I visited Pierre Marcolini and bought several bars there but I don't remember them being as expensive. With the prices you list, it's cheaper to fly to Paris to buy them!

Bars I've reviewed, sorted by price per 100 g:

If I think a chocolate bar is worth the expense I'll pay premium prices for it. I track the bars I've reviewed by calculating the price per 100g to make a standard that I can easily compare. The most I've paid is $53.57/100g for some small Pierre Marcolini pieces. The most I've paid for one bar is $22 for the Bonnat "Marfil de Blanco Porcelana". In my next post I'm going to attach a list of the bars I've tasted, sorted by price per 100g.

My focus is reviewing fine chocolate bars (see ChocoFiles ) and I usually try to taste one 6-8g piece at a time. Depending on various factors my tastings vary from 1 to maybe 5 per day. (The less I like a chocolate bar the quicker I eat it to get rid of it, and the more I like it the more slowly I savor it.) So I guess I eat 7-40 g per day. I'll average that to 20g per day.

With really fine chocolate that I highly enjoy an 8g piece more than satisfies me for several hours!

Here is some information about where to buy chocolate bars in NYC. (Brady B sent it to me in 2009.)

#1. Food Emporium / The World of Chocolate , 1175 3rd Ave. @ 68th St..

Adrienne Henson

What this is, is actually a separate room inside of a grocery store.

Pro's: It's fun and has tons of different bars to choose from.There are a couple goodemployeesusually on hand. What you'll find: Madecasse, Vao Vao, Malie Kai, Valrhona (they have some that you don't have on your list), Vestri, Republica del Cacao, Maglio, Amano, Askinosie, Santander, Bonnat (they still had some of the Porcelana bars last I checked but they are $$$), Santander. Plus a bunch of other mediocre bars. Some you may be interested in. It's fairly easy to get to but it is not near any tourist attraction that I imagine you'll already be at. Open later than most places.

...Most of the Felchlin is gone. LastFelchlin itemsleft were Elvesia and Madagascar. Cru Sauvage is definitely gone and there is no other place in the city that carries it.

The Chocolate Library (aka Chocolate 101 because of a naming dispute)

111 St. Marks Place (Avenue A)

(212) 995-5001

Owned by Byron Bennett

Also, you are within walking distance to. It is now called:

Borne Confections: ( the old Pierre Marcolini store) 485 Park Ave between 58-59th St.
The store now sells another Bean to Bar, from Oriol Balaguer.Oriol only has one bar.
Theyve sold off their Pierre Marcolini bars. Considering you haven't had Pierre Marcolini, you might make this your #1 stop as I don't know you can order it online either. He is bean to bar and it's the only Belgian chocolate that is actually great!. Bars run 11$ ea.but are currently not on the shelf. They have them behind the counter but you have to ask for them.

Borne Confections

485 Park Avenue, New York NY 10022 ( map )
212-755-5150
www.borneconfections.com

The next options are places that you might be near while touring.

Near Empire State Building: Actually inside the Empire State Building is La Maison du Chocolat. It is only a temporary outpost for the holiday but worth it. They are known for their truffles, which are very good but pricey. They also have good bars (approx. 10$ each). They are worth the $. They are made by Valrhona.

Near the NY Stock Exchange: 1. La Maison du Chocolat, 63 Wall st. 2. Christopher Normans, 60 New St. He does not make bean to bar but has good truffles. Owner John Down is originally a painter. His truffles have his paintings on them and he has some artwork hanging in the shop that he painted with chocolate. It is very close to the NY Stock Exchange and the famous statue of the Stock Market Bull, however it is in an alley that you wouldn't expect something to be in.

Near Rockefeller Plaza:

La Maison du Chocolat, 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Brooklyn

Depending on how much time you have, a trip to Brooklyn could net you somebars you can't get in Manhattan. I'll just tell you what is available and if you have enough time I can help you get around. To hit all four of these places you'd need at least two hours of free time from your group. However you could do just the first two (Chocolate Room and Brooklyn Larder in one hour, including travel time to Brooklyn). The second two stores are a bit of a hike but are doable if you don't mind walking.

Brooklyn Larder ,228 Flatbush Ave.: Claudio Corallo, Patric, Taza, Mast Bros, Madecasse, Askinosie, Amano

Chocolate Room ,86 5th Ave: Bonnat, Madecasse, Pacari, Vintage, KiXocolatl, Theo Phinney

Blue Apron, 814 Union St.: Bonnat, Patric (including the new Rio Caribe), Madecasse, Valrhona, Vintage, El Ceibo (Chloe's line), Dolfin, Askinosie, Taza (including the Chiapan bar)

Green Grape Provisions ,753 Fulton St: Rogue (the only place in town that I'm aware of selling Rogue), Taza, Vintage, Patric, Vere, Vosge, Askinosie, Madecasse, TCHO(last I was there, the bars were out of stock. No worries, they are horrible).

There are good shops for truffles in SoHo. #1 choice is Kee's Chocolate , 80 Thompson St.

One other interesting place is L.A. Burdicks , 5 East 20th st. Tel: 212-796-0143

Directions: Between 5 ^th Ave. and Broadway. 4 blocks from Union Station.

Owned by Larry Burdick

He sells barsproduced by Felchlin, packaged in Burdick packaging, as well assome really good truffles and pastries.

Oy. I just realized that, at about 50 gm per day, I'm eating a little over 18 kg per year. I'd rather say in eating 50 gm per day. Sounds nicer. To be fair, the research on chocolate is reasonable. I totally burn it off, and if you're eating 70% or higher, it's actually got a reasonable amount of fiber. I do skip it some days, but I find myself wishing a nice restaurant just offered a few squares of good chocolate rather than all the fancy desserts. They're nice, but the chocolate would be even more satisfying and have lots fewer calories. Anyone outdoing me on the consumption end (and willing to go on record?!)

I eat a little more than 1 oz. a day -- it doesn't take much to feel satisfied with really great chocolate. One pound a day would be too much for me to really enjoy. My cacao excess if of a different sort. I've been eating a different kind of chocolate every day, for over five years -- about 120 pounds in all. I estimate that by end of April 2012, I will have eaten my body weight in chocolate. Strange but true. And yummy too.

Thanks to you all the great chocolate makers out there.

Corinne ( www.chocolatebanquet.com )

Chocolate, A Bitter Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum. And yes, it is a good read.

Good heavens, how much chocolate you eat. I am really amateur....
I eat about 2kg per year (4,4 lbs). Average consumption in Finland is 7kg/year per person (15,4 lbs).

Actually, I went through Chloe's book again, and when she does her TASTINGS she spits out the chocolate. It's less clear how much she eats when she's just eating for pleasure. She has some errors in there howver -- saying things like ganache being more fattening than chocolate bars. Nope. They both have about the same number of calories. Onemay just have more fat from cream, the other has morefat from cocoa butter.

OK, now I feel like an idiot. Thanks very much for this info. Heretofore, much of my bar-buying has occurred at Fog City News in SF, as I'm out there about once a month, soThe Meadow is a real find. Ironically, I was right around there last night for dinner. I was actually unfamiliar with chocomap andhalf the places you mentioned. I should probably lose my chocophile membership card or do penance by being forced to eat carob. Many thanks for the info here!

Keith

I visited the Xocolatti shop on Thompson, near Vosges, Kee and Maribelle on Broome. They are all near each other. Jacques Torres is only 4-5 blocks away also. Christopher Norman closed a few months back near Wall Street. The Black Hound in on 2nd Ave off of 14th, I think. You should go in and see Max Brenner on Broadway near 14th. Roni Sue in the Essex Market. The Chocolate Bar and Li Lac or close to each other on 8th Ave near 12 st., I think. The Meadow is a short walk away and probably the largest selection of bars. Burdick and Chocolate Moderne are on 20th and 22nd near 6th and Broadway. Another near Broadway and St. Mark's or 4th street, I can't remember now. I stumbled across the Three Tarts on 19th or so on 9th Ave. Cocoa Bar on Clinton near Houston has some good hot chocolate.

I just keeping finding out about more and will begin exploring New Jersey soon.

Google, chocolate map nyc and you can find most of them.

Speaking of shops around Manhattan, I've haunted La Maison, Michel Cluizel, Leonidas and Jaques Torres. I've had Vosges elsewhere. Anyone I'm missing?

I heard there was a Xocolat shop downtown but can't seem to get any info. I tried their choc/oliveoil bar at Fog City News in SF and liked it. A bit odd, but good.

I don't think that it is the chocolate that causes the weight gain per se. For me it was the introduction of a very calorie dense food into my diet which didn't change my other eating habbits, so I would eat normally and then add on top, or in between the extra caloric hit from 50-100g of dark choc per day. It wasn't that significant either but having weighed 69kg for as long as I can remeber, I noticed the variation - especially when not excersising regularly.

I think I read it in Mort Rosenblum or something like that, book on chocolate. It is a good read.

I tend to gorge on chocolate on occasion. Because I make micro batches at home and have a cheap supply of paste to grind, and started playing around with making ganches for truffles, bons bons and the like, and have gotten very good at chocolate cupcakes of various sorts; on would say I get somewhere between 100 and 200g a day of chocolate. There are times where I take a day or two off, but miss it. I have also been testing out various chocolate shops around Manhattan over the last six months, and over the course of an afternoon and evening, a dozen truffles or bon bons are very easy to enjoy. My wife and I will sit down and share two or three and then I have a couple more as the evening goes on.

I don't find eating chocolate has affected my weight in any way at all.

My understanding is that Chloe does indeed spit out most of the chocolate that she tastes. I can't remember where I heard that, though.

Exercising is essential, but not just to allow for chocolate. I just like to be active anyway and it's good for everyone to do what they can to be active. Of course, the benefit is that it provides a nice "ace in the hole" by allowing a few more discretionary calories -- that most of us would prefer to spend discretely (or not) on good chocolate!

I agree that chocolate should be it's own food group. I'd take it a step further and say that really good, high-quality, high-cocoa content stuff should be a deductable medical expense, but the powers that be don't seem to agree.

Re: Chloe, like I said, she couldn't actually eat that much on a daily basis. Gotta be way overreported. Unless she tastes but spits out, like the wine and coffee tasters do, but that would seem to be a real waste of good chocolate.

I'd do maybe 50 to 100g per day, lets say 50g average. I make a lot and also buy bars of the good stuff, constantly tasting and re-tasting. I find with dark chocolate that you are about right,30g and I'm good for a while.

Its interesting you mention the weight gain their Brad, I also found that when I started making chocolate, it was much easier to gain weight when not excersisingwith that muchchocolate as part of your diet. I currently ride 150km per week to and from work and do weights regularly too toenable myself to enjoy the amount of chocolate that I do.

A POUND of chocolate per day??? Wow.... Chloe either has the metabolism of a mouse, has the exercise regime of an elite athlete, or weighs 400+ lbs herself!

As far as I'm concerned, chocolate is it's own food group, and I put down MAYBE 100g per day as I'm tasting various confections and recipes. Even with that small amount, I find I have to exercise extensively to keep the weight off. Usually over the course of November/December when I'm between dirt biking seasons (not riding or exercising), just those two months alone see me gain 6-7lbs. The only thing I've done different in my eating over the past 10 years is introduce chocolate into my diet about 5 years ago. Before that I never gained weight over the winter.

I can't even begin to fathom how many times I'd have to run the stairs to work off 2800 calories of chocolate per day! Yikes.

Brad

When I read that Chloe Doutre-Roussel in The Chocolate Connoisseur wrote that she ate something like a pound of chocolate a day, I didn't believe it and I still don't. I just wondered how much people usually eat per day, on average. If there's aforum/discussion about this, I missed it, so please excuse.

I know that for myself, a 100 gm bar lasts about 2 days. That's way more than the "per capita" consumption, but in a group like this, it might be far lower. Just wanted to find out how it is for you all. If you respond, just be honest. No one's making any judgements here. Hell, many of my friends think I'm insane for spending $11 for a 100 gm bar of good stuff. I usually counter that they'd spend much more on a bottle of wine that wouldn't last as long, but I digress. If you're on this forum, then I'm assuming good chocolate takes you to your happy place (maybe good wine, too).

Good stuff should be savored, in my book, so I try to take my time eating it. Usually I find that after an ounce or so, I'm good for a while, but that may be just me. Mind you, I'm not inquiring about how much you COULD eat, just how much you do on average.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Update: so, i washed the molds with warm water, no detergent whatsoever, used cotton balls to remove the chocolate that was stuck in them, and them polished them dry with cotton balls. Today i polished the molds with cotton once again, tempered the chocolate and i put them on the balcony for 2 hours. And every single shell fell out, i tapped the mold lightly twice, most of them fell out then, the rest i just lifted with mu fingers. I couldn't be happier. Thank you, Mark, for the advice.

Thank you, Mark, i'll try that next!

Retry warming the molds, but no where near that warm. Your fingers typically are about 92F, so if it felt warm to you they were probably warm enough to remelt the chocolate poured against them and lose your temper. The molds should be the same temperature as your tempered chocolate to about 5 degrees cooler. Molds too cold will also cause problems as the cocoa butter will set up too quickly in untempered state, before the seed crystallizes the rest as it should.

Hello, everybody, happy new year!

I'm very new in chocolate making and was very happy when i found this website. I tried searching for similar discussions and was not very successful, it could be my keywords were all wrong. So i apologize if this was already discussed at lenght and will appreciate anything you can tell me.

I bought martellato polycarbonate molds for praline, the first time i used them, the chocolate shells i made (i made liquer filled chocolates) almost fell out on their own. I followed the procedure for making chocolates that i found on theblog chocolate covered kitchen: i put the temperated chocolate in the mold, put it in the fridge for 5 minutes, emptied the molds to obtain chocolate shells, put that in the fridge for the next 15 minutes, then to the freezer for 7 minutes. The molds have the washing machine sign imprinted on them, so i washed them in the washing machine. One of the molds became cloudy, the other is still clear. My next attempt at chocolate making was not so successful. The chocolates got stuck in the molds and i could not get them out no matter how hard i banged them at the countertop. So i washed them (and the chocolate out of them) with hot water and dish detergent. Then i polished them with cotton. Some googling and asking questions showed i should not have put my molds in the dishwasher, wash them with hot water, used the detergent, put them in the freezer ... pretty much everything i did was (supposedly?) wrong. So i washed them with tepid water and a bit of hand soap once again, still with no success. Then i read someplace that i shouldn't wash the molds at all, that the water is bad for the PC plastic, so i used the blow-drier to melt the chocolate and cotton balls to clean the surface and polish the cavities. Out of 58 chocolate shells i should have gotten, i got 22 out in one piece. Then i called martellato and told them of my problems and they advised me to rub some cocoa butter in the cavities. I also got another piece of advise from a different source to not have my molds too cold, so i used a blow drier to make them warm to the touch. I couldn't get one single chocolate released from one of the molds, from another i got 9 that were in one piece and usable.

I should also mention that i had tried other methods of cooling the chocolate, i read someplace that the best temperature is 18 C, so i put the molds in the room with 18 C, left them there for 2 hours, also turned upside down this time (the advice about the temperature and upside down cam from the same place, keylink), but my molds are not so straight as they seem, so i got some chocolate hardening around the cavities and i still couldn't get them out in one piece, so i switched back to the method that first worked for me.

Another piece of information that is probably usable is the type of chocolate i am using: at first i used a 70 % chocolate i bought in lidl, and added 15 % of cocoa butter to it. Then, encouraged with success, i bought kessko chocolate (the only chocolate available in bulk where i live) and i am now using this one. I know i am tempering the chocolate correctly, because it does get nice and shiny and it does snap. Any advice on what a novice enthusiast working with chocolate at home can do and what am i doing wrong greatly appreciated.

I have asked Janice from chocolatecoveredkitchen and she said that, contrary to what she reads, putting the chocolates in the freezer for longer times if they don't want to release from molds is what works for her. I tried that and the longer they were in the freezer, the less it seemed to help.

I should also add that i am retempering the same chocolate (with as much "new" chocolate as needed) i got left from previous attempts.

Thank you for reading this, i know it is long.

The trick to using liquor instead of cocoa powder is to understand that liquor by weight is +/- 50% fat. You can't use liquor and not adjust the other fats that the recipe calls for (butter, vegetable oil, etc).

For example if your recipe calls for 1/4 c of cocoa powder, you need to use 1/2 c of liquor and reduce the other fat in your recipe by 1/4 c. it's really that simple.

I think you'll also find that by reducing other fats, your baked goods will be much lighter and fluffier than using shortenings, or oil. At least that's been my experience.

Cheers

Brad.

I'm interested in hearing whether or not chocolate makers who sell at fairs and festivals have had any success selling unsweetened baking chocolate. I love using my bean-to-bar chocolate in baking, of course, but would like to hear if vendors at these kinds of events have tried it. My thought is packaging it as four 2-oz bars with about four recipes included......basics like brownies, cookies, cake, etc.