BRIGHTNESS ON CHOCOLATE
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
To me that just looks like well tempered chocolate
Forum Activity for @Gap
BRIGHTNESS ON CHOCOLATE
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Thanks Rene! Any brand do you recomend or another alternative than lacca? Thanks again!
BRIGHTNESS ON CHOCOLATE
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Hi! My name is Esteban, from Argentina. I decided to post this discussion because I'd like to know if it is possible to apply lacca or something to improve the brightness on chocolate.
I attache this image as an example of what I'm looking for. I bought this chocolate, and I can sure you that it hasn't photoshop.
Thanks in advance for your help!!!!
Regards,
Esteban
updated by @Esteban Iriart: 04/11/25 09:27:36
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Interesting discussion Brad,
I think both are important. I like chocolate that engages multiple senses. That said, taste is the most important to me. But I have trialled chocolates that are identical in flavor profile (same ganache) but presented differently, and one totally outsold the other. So I think as consumers, people eat with their eyes first. If you can back that up with great taste, then you have a winning combination.
Assuming that your customers build trust, and are happy to buy on taste I still think well presented chocolates should not be over-looked. Despite the fact they will be more likely to buy because they like your product, you still want to entice new customers to keep your business growing - and I think if you can engage the eyes AND the mouth in terms of impressing people, this is better than just focusing on taste and not worrying too much about the final look. So I believe the more senses we engage well, the better.
That's my two cents worth, and only because that is what seems to work best for me
- Stu
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Fun discussion. We believe taste is paramount. Taste first, looks second. We don't do shelf-life, life is too short to sit on a shelf. Enjoy what you like come back later for more. We try very hard to source seasonal products from our region for our flavors and then step outside that when necessary. It's all a very pain in the ass when it comes to trying to get our product out to retailers as we have to switch it out every 2 weeks but it's who we are. If you want something that can sit on a shelf for a year go eat a flavored candle. 
Our cakes are the same way, we don't believe in fondant--if you want an architectural masterpiece that tastes like cardboard go elsewhere. If you want a real buttercream, cream cheese, fudge icing that makes you drool--step right up.
I was at a show the other day where this company had all molded chocolates and they were the most vibrant of colors and sparkles. They were beautiful in one regard but it was also very scary to me on another. I was thinking they had their work very process driven but it didn't seem very artisanal. Tasting one of them it was a thick shell with an air gap where they had pipped in the ganache and the ganache was stale and a bit waxy. Well wasn't that right on target. Looked great but hollow and stale. Kudos. hehe.
I'm a lover of all food, as long as it's good food! :D
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Thanks for the feedback Jessica.
Cheers.
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
As a consumer: I use my eyes to determine the signs of care and attention a chocolatier puts into their work. I'm looking for the sheen that indicates good crystallization and correct storage. I look for an absence of bubbles (unless they are an intentional part of the work.)
As far as style goes, shape counts whether it's enrobed or moulded, not just for style but for what the ganache to shell ratio is likely to be. I'll accept the use of a transfer sheet, lustre, or coloured cocoa-butter but they must be used with discretion and purpose, in a way that accentuates the work, or hints at the flavour. Ditto for garnishes. I've seen many a 'dressed up' chocolate that to me is a hot mess visually, and makes me less inclined to try tasting because I'm already sensing a "style over substance" thing going on. Fashion is a tricky game for chocolate to play.
In a competitive market (for example, Paris, London, or Brussels,) I use the (presumed deliberate) absence or presence of these visual cues, hints of attention, and indicators of quality making/handling to try and determine how much of a perfectionist the chocolatier is, as well as whether they might lean more to the natural side or artificial side. This of course helps me to decide if I'd like to buy a taste. When in doubt, I'll usually still pick one or two "benchmark" bonbons... ones that anyone should be able to do but that are inevitably done either incredibly well, or just 'meh'. Stuff like salted caramel or an earl grey infusion.
I personally prefer that a chocolatier rest faithful to "food", (rather than chemicals,) and though you can ask about such things when in a store or do a little digging on your own, you may not get the 100% truth as to whether preservatives are used, etc. In some parts of the world you might not even have the language abilities to ask or understand the answer. If I KNOW a chocolatier is relying on non-natural substances for taste or an unreasonably long shelf life, I automatically don't think of them as a 'fine' chocolatier, and don't expect to pay 'fine' prices.
It doesn't mean I won't try the industrial tastes of the market wherever I go though... as this will tell you a good deal about the local palate for sweets & commercial standards of 'quality' - all things that local chocolatier has to deal with and take into account while trying to sell to their market.
But ultimately, as you've said, taste (and also for me, texture) is king. If I've tried something that shows a good deal of 'promotion' put into the visual aspect, and the product isn't living up to its 'extremely high promise' in my mouth, I'm disappointed. On the other hand, I've had my socks knocked off by small town guys who didn't have anything flashy or colourful on the external display, but just had stuff that looked well made, or possibly some intriguing flavours in their case of plain-but-seemingly-well-constructed bonbons.
Make it well, make it neatly. This is I guess my base standard, with the rest being frills that determine how high you're telling me I should set the bar for you before I've even tasted. Double edged sword, that...
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Kerry;
Just because it's deemed "safe in small quantities" doesn't mean we should consume it. Chlorine is even MORE toxic than Ethylene Glycol, and it's put into our drinking water! 10 years ago I started drinking purified water, because the tap water here in Calgary smells and tastes like the water from a local swimming pool. Yuck.
Who wants to try this experiment? Drink a glass of Propylene glycol, a glass of clorine, and a glass of ammonia, and let me know how you feel in the morning!
Oh... and ammonia.... here's a good link to peruse: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/pinkslime-ammonia-ground-beef.htm
In the meantime, I'll stick to cream, sugar (processed without bone char), fresh butter, and my chocolate. Oh... and the blue powder we add to our whipped cream is naturally derived and not man made - just an FYI.
Cheers.
Brad
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
I personally do not eat blue foods unless it is made with blueberries. For sweetening agents, I prefer those that have been pressed, or lightly processed rather than cooked. Honey, pure grade b maple syrup, agave and evaporated cane juice are my choices. I am unclear if any these can be added to chocolate being they are liquid. I have used pure cane sugar and honey powder so far and bought a stevia sweetened chocolate the other day which I did not like. My concern is taste and health. Presentation is important but not primary. I find I have to pay more if it has obviously taken more human labor.
When I look to buy chocolate bars, I prefer no lecithen for no reason than if it is not necessary, why use it. A minimal approach is preferred for my own personal consumption.
When I buy chocolates as a gift, I am more concerned about presentation, only after taste.
After Bryon Kirk's Sunday update, I guess we are eating pieces of cockroaches.
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Actually propylene glycol is not considered toxic in humans at levels that aren't extremely excessive over a short period of time (ie drinking a gallon of the stuff in one sitting) - it's used in a huge variety of pharmacutical and food products that you might actually use in your business (check out the blue food colouring you add to your cream). It's also in the Angostura bitters you may add to your cocktails, the valium you might need when you are having a really bad day, it's probably in your toothpaste too. Ethylene glycol is much more toxic.
So cat's shouldn't drink antifreeze - but humans actually can in smaller quantities.
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Hi Brad,
thanks for clearing that up - I would agree with you on the not drinking anti-freeze!
As for the argument that "you eat with your eyes": I do think taste is the ultimate trump card and beats all in the end - your example of repeat customers is a good one and entirely appropraite. However, I spend an equal amount of time with patisserie as I do chocolates and visual appeal does have an impact, it just can't be denied- you just need to look at what is being done in Paris with Easter eggs this year. I would happily pay 50% more for an Easter egg that looks like one of those over a standard looking egg made with the same chocolate.
Coloured chocolates/bon bons/confections are another example of how the industry has moved forward with presentation. As are the new modern range of polycarbonate moulds. So for me, while taste is the ultimate trump card over ANY visual aid, presentation/eye candy does have it's role. I guess in my mind the size of its role is probably determined by what your competitors are doing. Where there is a lot of competition and the level of "taste" is similar across the competitors, people want visual appeal. I think visual appeal can also help people justify a higher price in their own mind for a product (eg., taking it to someone as a gift, you want to hear how beautiful your gift looks).
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
Gap;
You're not splitting hairs at all. In fact I'm glad you brought this up. I'm talking about ingredients that don't exist in nature without some alchemical process being applied. Propylene Glycol for example is a poison. I use it in my race bikes as anti-freeze. However, the FDA and CFIA have deemed it to be safe for use in minute quantities in food to stabilize whipped edible oil products (aka the white whipped crap on mass produced cakes and pastries thatsome call whipped cream). Stuff like that.
While I have modified our milkchocolate recipes to no longer use lecithin, it does exist in nature. It just has to be extracted from its source.
With regard to glucose syrup, I would expect that even though it doesn't at first exist in nature, currently it IS created through the process of enzyme hydrolosis, whereby naturally occurring enzymes and bacteria are added to a mixture of corn starch and water, to break down the starch and produce the glucose.
I think to determine whether or not the use of glucose should be used would be splitting hairs. However propylene glycol's a pretty blatant one. "Don't drink anti-freeze! (but you can use it in your whipped white crap! HAHA!).
So, Gap... Just to ensure this stays on track, am I to understand that you too believe that everything is about taste as well? I think I read your post that way.
Cheers.
Brad
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
"Given my stance that the driving force behind what we do is customer service and product freshness and taste, we will NEVER, EVER, EVER, .....EVER use chemicals or food stabilizers to give our products shelf life. EVER.... If we can't make it fresh, we won't make it at all."
I'm not sure what this means (and I've seen a lot of other people say it other than Brad, so I'm after lots of opinions on this, I'm not just asking Brad here). So for those of you who say "no additives" or "no food stablisers" or "only natural", would you use glucose syrup? It's my understanding that glucose syrup will help bind water and extend shelf life. If glucose syrup, then what about glucose powder? (After all, you're just removing the moisture). Then what about sorbitol powder? (It's just another sort of sugar). Would you use honey? So is invert sugar acceptable (given honey is more or less a natural invert sugar anyway)? Would you use lecithin to emulsify your product? What about if there is lecithin in your chocolate anyway (and I acknowledge that you may not use it Brad, but people who don't make their own chocolate almost certainly do)? What about adding salt?
I'm not trying to be difficult or split hairs here - just trying to understand what people mean. My opinion starts with Brad's above - everything is about taste. If you can extend shelf life without affecting taste/texture/flavour/smell etc etc etc, using some of the ingredients I mention above, why wouldn't you? So then the question is - where do you draw the line on what you will add? I'm just curious to see what people think about this and what others are doing out there in chocolate world.
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
I don't tend to buy chocolates (centres with a coating of chocolate)personally, I prefer solid dark chocolate bars. But I was recently in a shop, it was holidaysand I was buying some for my daughter and wife. I knew what flavours they liked and all my purchases were based on my knowledge of chocolate and how certain flavours would be represented in the offerings in the cupboard and there was a great deal to choose from. All my purchases bar onewere based on how I thought it would taste, not how it looked. It was also influenced by not wanting to give my daughter artificial colours and flavours and what I thought would have been freshest.Though I did buy one that looked like big red lips which was made of coloured white chocolate with a white chocolate ganache, I bought this because it was cute andromantic and not for taste. I knew it would taste like waxymilk and sugar with vanilla...and it did! What a surprise.
So majority on taste! or rather perceived taste, I knew they used Belgian covertureso I wasn't going to eat any.
"We Eat With Our Eyes." Hmmmm.... I'm not convinced.
Posted in: Opinion
The other day I had a discussion with a chocolatier who brought into our shop an entire binder of beautiful chocolate and pastry work he had done and photographed. It truly was food art.
Trying to convince me to come aboard, he told me and I quote, "We eat with our eyes." We discussed the possibility of him working for me. He described grandios plans he had for creating wonderful displays of chocolate confections, citing different types of stabilizers he can use to make the products last longer and still look good.
I gave him a two part reply. I said:
People only generally eat with their eyes the first time they visit a restaurant. It's the only mechanism the customer has to focus on something that helps them make a decision, because they've never experienced the food. Once they've actually "tasted" the food, a trust between the business and the customer has begun to develop and the customer is more willing to make subsequent purchases sight unseen. At that point the presentation takes a back seat to taste. Given that I'm interested in RETURN customers, and not a bunch of one-timers, I take the position that taste is more important.
For example: a small subset of our customers complain that we color the whipped cream on our drinking chocolates blue. They don't like how it looks, yet they buy it time and time again because the emotional response from the taste far surpasses the uncomfort they get from the blue whipped cream.
As my daughter so eloquently put it a few years ago: "Daddy, it doesn't matter what it looks like, 'cause when you do a chew-and-show it all looks the same anyway. The most important thing is how the food tastes."
From the mouth of babes..... I couldn't agree with her more. Personally, I don't care how beautiful the chocolatier's creations are when I walk into a shop. The first thing I do is ask what kind of chocolate they use. If I don't like that brand of chocolate, I won't buy a thing regardless of how beautiful it is. (although I DO take time to appreciate the chocolatier's skills with the product).
My second part was pretty blunt: Given my stance that the driving force behind what we do is customer service and product freshness and taste, we will NEVER, EVER, EVER, .....EVER use chemicals or food stabilizers to give our products shelf life. EVER.... If we can't make it fresh, we won't make it at all.
While I truly appreciate his skill with modelling food, that more or less ended the interview.
So....
Having said all of that, what do you people out there in ChocolateLife Land think? I pose this thought-provoking question to you, because in the past couple of years of reading this forum, I've heard many people ask how they can make their confections more beautiful, while at the same time asking questions relating to how to extend the shelf life of their products.
What's important to you as a consumer? How a product looks, or how a product tastes?
I look forward to reading your resplies AS CONSUMERS.
Cheers
Brad
updated by @Brad Churchill: 04/10/15 04:26:32
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Bingo bango bongo. The largest oligofructosd supplier in the world is in Belgium, and they use beet and chicory for their extraction. Corn is the source of the maltodextrin cost reducer. Oligofructose is both a prebiotic and fiber.
Note there is no ingredient declaration listed.
Again, beware claims made by marketing companies who say things too good to be true. Remember that everything you read on an Internet page isn't accurate. Question it and independantly verify it. Independantly verify what I write 8)Edit: huh for dome reason it's not posting this as a reply to brad, as it should be. Sorry for the odd placement
Sugar Free Chocolate
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haha that's why I'm asking. I believe there's no substitute for sugar, but we made a batch with NutraSweet and people, that are used to consume sweeteners, liked it very much, personally I hated it, it left a horrible bitter aftertaste. But I wanted to know if there was any other beet-based sugar somewhere.
updated by @Daniela Vasquez: 09/08/15 02:24:58
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
I'd lay bets that it's fibre that's been infused with sucralose. If it's 99.9% "natural" as the website claims, the 0.1% is the chemical sweetening agent, and the rest is filler.
That's what I'm guessing.
Notice that it isn't being marketed in the US, where a product like that, if legit would take off like wildfire??? How come?
Interesting indeed.
Brad
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Oh my what I've missed whilst traveling. Such misinformation. Some things to consider:- Splenda was never a pesticide, nor was that the original goal. Pls provide a credible reference to the contrary if you have it. There's a small, but very vocal, group of people who vehemently oppose any high intensity sweeteners (his), and routinely provide misinformation w/o evidence to back it up. Yes it contains chlorine; you eat chlorine every day in the form of salt, and that was never a pesticide either.- when a marketing group "discovers" a new magical sweetener that sounds too good to be true, it is. There is no perfect solution; everything had pros/cons.-not all sugar alcohols have a laxative effect; most do; and many aren't suitable for chocolate production. I think I've discussed it at length at the chocolate alchemy forum, if its not comprehensive enought there, let me know and I'll clarify further when time allows.
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
and what about beet sugar? there are some sweeteners beet-based that say to be zero calories
Sugar Free Chocolate
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I am responding to the recent comments about sugar-free chocolate bars. I learned about xylitol and stevia over 10 years ago while I was doing research for my doctoral dissertation in Holistic Nutrition. I developed numerous recipes using xylitol as the only sweetener and incorporated them into my cookbook, Sweeten Your Life the Xylitol Way, now in its second edition. This cookbook has been well received by individuals and companies who sell xylitol, such as Xlear, Xylitol USA (formerly Emerald Forest Sugar), Epic Dental, and Now Foods. A few years ago, I began also incorporating erythritol into my recipes to reduce the carb count and calories even further.
Within the past year I have focused on developing dark chocolate bars sweetened only with the natural sweeteners xylitol, erythritol, and stevia. My husband is a chocoholic and had been urging me for a long time to develop sugar-free dark chocolate so that he could enjoy it and not have to deal with the harmful side effects of sugar. I now have four variations of these chocolate bars in limited production. They are all dark chocolate, low glycemic, and dairy-free. The basic bar is 77% cacao and is sweetened only with xylitol and stevia; I have used this bar as a basis to develop two flavored versions, mint and raspberry. The low carb bar is 75% cacao and is sweetened only with xylitol, erythritol, and stevia. This low carb bar has been successfully tested by a Type 1 diabetic who verified by using a continuous monitor that there was little or no effect on her blood sugar levels.
I am not making the chocolate bean to bar. I start with unsweetened chocolate liqueur and add my own flavorings and sweeteners, then I mlange, temper, and mold. I am looking into purchasing additional equipment so that I can produce these chocolate bars in larger quantities. Im currently selling these bars, as well as my other sugar-free products such as fudge, hot cocoa mix, brownies, dark chocolate glazed peanut butter cookies, and granola at local farmers markets. I am planning to add the chocolate bars to my website after I have increased production and have the cold packaging developed for shipping in hot weather.
My goal has always been to create recipes and develop products that taste at least as good as, if not better than, the commercially available sugar-sweetened version of that recipe or product, and this has been verified by my customers. I welcome comments and other discussion about naturally sweetened sugar-free chocolate.
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Deanne, that's still a very very small market and only concentrated in a few areas so far. Compare that to another market I strive to hit and still miss to large degrees--the vegan/vegetarian communities ( Alternate Trend ) and Paleo doesn't even rank.
The quest is never over. Tatiana found a few brands I need to check in while at the Fancy Food show. Not sure if they are low or alternate sugared chocolate but worth some further research.
For most of our search in this area is for people who have medical issues. Paleo, Vegan, Raw, etc, are usually* choices.
* caveats always
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
You can't call your chocolate chip cookies sugar free then. If you were making plain cookies with no chocolate in, then these would be sugar free and surely can be called sugar free.. if you make your sugar free cookies, and then add chocolate chips into them...they aren't sugar free any longer, and should not be labelled as sugar free..
Simple really.
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
The cookie is 100% sugar-free. The chips are not, which is why we list the cookies as "No Sugar Added."
And, the chocolate we use is so dark and has so little sugar, that it passes the meter test. Every single one of our recipes must be tested by a glucose-impaired person with their own meter at the 60, 90 and 120 hour mark. The dessert must be eaten all by itself; no extra fat to slow glucose conversion allowed. The dessert must not raise blood sugars at the 1-hr mark any more than 10 points over fasting, and by the 2-hr mark blood sugars must be back down by at least that much.
The cookies pass.
The Valrhona chocolate with maltitol -- or any food with any maltitol -- would not. Maltitol acts in the bloodstream precisely like sugar, and any amount over an ounce will spike their insulin, spike their blood sugars, and send folks to the john for an hour or so. This is why we don't use it in anything, and why I do not allow my blog participants to ever eat any amount of it under any circumstances: it actually makes insulin resistance worse.
SugarFree
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
"The sole exception is my sugar-free chocolate chip cookie, for which we use Callebaut 86% chocolate drops, so they will be labeled "No Sugar Added" instead of "Sugar-Free.""
Surely you don't have a sugar-free chocolate chip cookie then??
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Sorry "AWriter" from the first post, the person was wanting to know of any sugar free chocolates - I was simply saying Valrhona make such a chocolate. Although your quest is interesting, the fact you are trying to make products with no sugar what-so-ever doesn't really help the original poster. Have you successfully manufactured a chocolate with no sugar in it, that is commercially available, that she can buy, and then use to make products for her diabetic customers??????
With regards to the warning of "excessive consumption" may cause laxative effects.. if someone who is diabetic who really wants to eat small amounts of chocolate, this might be a better option than eating normal chocolate. Anyway, it's widely reported that Coffee can have laxative effects if drunk in excessive volmes.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coffee#Laxative.2Fdiuretic - I don't see the demand for coffee shrinking any time soon as a result..
Cheers
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Xocoline Ingredients (taken from German Valrhona site):
Cocoa beans, sweetener: maltitol, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soy lecithin, Natural vanilla extract. May contain traces of nuts, milk and egg proteins, gluten and peanuts. Excessive consumption may have laxative effects.
Think I'll pass, thanks. 
SugarFree
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Valrhona make a range of sugar free chocolates. They are sold under the name Xocoline.
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Kera, Lakanto is just a very overpriced mix of Lo Han and Erythritol. You can buy both and mix it yourself, which will also let you control proportions. I use both (and several other) natural sweeteners in my goods.
SugarFree.
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Hi Antonino,
(re: where to buy Lakanto) I haven't seen it in stores where I live but it can be bought online at places like Amazon or Sara ya. It's a bit pricey.
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Hi awriter,
thank you for the good update on sugar free! this global research is going well!
I'm not a scientist but i have spent 20 years in pastry kitchen, that is where my knowledge for ingredient come from.
The point of the research was to find out options for "sugar-free" chocolate bar (as i have a bean to bar business). Making desserts sugar free, low carb, gluten free, egg free etc.. based on chocolate that taste even better than regular is actually (for me...) the easy thing! i did it for the past 10 years.
The difficult part is to create a chocolate bar that is completely sugar (sucrose) free and still being of good taste and at least not more harmful than the one made with real sugar.
I haven't started yet with the physical testing, at the moment we are talking just theoretically. We still believe that our 85% dark chocolate and our 95% "40 hour conche" is still the best bet for our diabetic clients.
Ps: i going to have a look at your blog!
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Hi, folks - just came across this discussion and hope to add some helpful information.
First, I've been in R&D for the last four years to create the first all-natural (no chemicals, preservatives, agave, maltitol or artificial sweeteners, including sucralose) sugar-free desserts in the country. The one rule that every dessert has to pass before being added to our line is that it be fine restaurant quality, and in look, taste and texture, be as good as or better than the 'real thing.' When we do taste testing with guests we do not tell them the item is sugar-free, and enjoy watching their jaws drop when we inform them after they give their detailed feedback.
We launch in a few months as Good For You Goodies. Desserts that are actually good for someone to eat. Why do I say good for you to eat? Because after the 60 Minutes expose on sugar (that would include ALL forms, including cane juice, raw, etc.) about how it, and not fat, is a cause of some types of heart disease and cancer, as well as the cause of obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes -- which the scientific community has known for years -- it should be clear to any thinking person that avoiding this toxin forever is imperative for long-term health. But back to sweeteners.
Why no agave? Because until high fructose corn syrup, which is 55% fructose and in sufficient quantities will not only give you NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, now a raging epidemic in this nation's children) -- agave syrup is 77% to 99% fructose! Sure, it doesn't raise blood sugars, but that's only because it's handled by the body differently than glucose, in that it goes straight to the liver for processing. If you want to get very, very sick, use lots of agave syrup. Maltitol is bad because unlike other sugar alcohols (xylitol and erythritol, which the body cannot 'see' and therefore excretes without effect on blood sugars), it will spike insulin and blood sugars: a double whammy. Upshot: Avoid . And Stevia? My medical and science research, as well as real-time work with Participants on my blog (see below), show that it interferes in metabolic processes involving fat accumulation (though I haven't yet pinned down the biological pathways) so that's out. Just as well, the stuff is bitter no matter what brand, or how it's used -- and I've tried every single brand and type on the market. Truvia is truly disgusting.
How do I know all this? I run a blog on the Science of Nutrition, Obesity and Diabetes: Sugarfreegoodies
But back to chocolate. After years of experimenting, it became clear that creating chocolate bars or candy for mass production without agave or maltitol was impossible. Either it tasted bad, gave you the runs, or both. And it cost a fortune, making retail prices prohibitive.
Instead, I concentrated on chocolate desserts, where unsweetened chocolate could be melted and, with the alchemy of natural sweeteners I spent years, blood, sweat and tears to discover, come through the looking glass as fabulous ganache, brownies, etc. The sole exception is my sugar-free chocolate chip cookie, for which we use Callebaut 86% chocolate drops, so they will be labeled "No Sugar Added" instead of "Sugar-Free." Our initial line will consist of those brownies and cookies, plus sugar-free vanilla ice-box cheesecake, chocolate truffle cheesecake, chocolate ganache-covered peanut butter mousse bars (all three of which have a puffed rice chocolate crunch crust testers cannot get enough of) and various flavored scones.
In other words, better to use already existing high quality chocolate for desserts instead of trying to re-invent the wheel on bars, IMHO, at least for now. There are a few natural sweeteners coming on the market in the next few years that might make me rethink this.
SugarFree
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Thomas - there are a number of producers of evaporated organic cane juice in crystals. Paraguay and Brazil are big producers (and Brazil is cheaper). Wholesome Sweeteners can get it to you by the ton (nothing smaller) but you can call them and find a local distributor who can sell it to you by the 40-50lb bag. I last bought through Ace Naturals in Queens, though they don't deliver to where you are in N Jersey. Shouldn't be too hard to find through natural food distributor or bakery supply company.
Sugar Free Chocolate
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Thank you, after doing some searching on the web, I have learned something new. One company claims their cactus honey is made from bee's honey.
updated by @Thomas Forbes: 09/07/15 23:58:39
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
HI Thomas,
apparently what they call cactus "honey" is nothing else that crystallized agave syrup! It look like there is no bees involved into making "honey"=disinformation and using the word "honey" as marketing tool... i have found a couple of website that explain this in details.
i think the use of maltodextrin is for keeping it "dry" ( i have used in the past tapioca maltodextrin to turn olive oil into powder...)
I notice that from the list i made, except for the "Lakanto" (where to fid it?), it all goes back to Agave/cactus plants.
South Africa (where i live) is a big producer of agave syrup and powder, and the farming area is just about 2 hours drive from Cape Town. I'm actually in touch with a producer and i should ask them if i could visit the plantation and maybe have a talk with their lab-test people to clarify the myth of agave...
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
This has pure honey and maltodextrin listed has it's only ingredients. The company is Arizona Farm, cactus honey powder. I wish it was 100% honey.
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Hi Thomas,
i did some research not long time ago onhoney powder and it did look like that only 30% is actual honey and the rest is simply sugar (saccarose) so i gave up on using honey to make solid bars (although honey will be the best "sugar free" product! natural and depend on the flowers and area we could have an infinite number of combinations!).
Could you please check how is your honey powder made?
thanks!
Sugar Free Chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
I have found honey powder at Korean supermarkets in north New Jersey. I made a couple of batches of 75% and it turned out very nice. Can you get evaporated cane juice in powder or crystal form? I see this used on many vegan and other products sold at health food stores.