Hi Diane,
Thank you so much for the advice and guidance! As much as I would love to meet you regarding an internship, I am unable to accept; Westchester is just too far from my home. But thanks again for the generous offer; I appreciated it greatly!
Hi, thanks for the offer. Could you possibly send me some contact information so that we can discuss further?
Thank you for the offer. Unfortunately you're approximately five hours away from me; I can't travel that far.
You can intern with us in a month or so.
emvichocolate.com
Hi,
I am a recent graduate of Ecole Chocolats Professional Chocolatier Program, and I am wanting to intern with a chocolatier. I currently live on Long Island, NY, but am unsure about how to find an internship here. Any suggestions?
Thanks, Lynn
If you visit the link I gave, you'll see all of their flavors, over 45 flavors in all!
It was interesting using 16 of their flavors in different batches of truffles. My blend of strawberry and guava was a big hit, while I didn't add enough elderberry to my mix of Jasmine and Elderberry the first time and so will try again. It was also amazing that some people loved flavors (e.g. Mango) that I thought were a bit mild.
I like this entire article and appreciate your work done on this subject. These are really incredible flavors for chocolate but some people like different flavor in chocolate. Like to know more flavor for " churreria chocolateria ".
[ From the moderator: Jose - Keep your comments on topic - your comment is actually SPAM because it is not on topic and it's promoting a business. Please refrain from doing this in the future - and BTW, there is a "do not follow" on links embedded in comments so this does not help your SEO. -- Clay ]
Hank -
Thanks for this recommendation. Good to know.
Years ago, I ordered some "natural organic" flavors from Natures Flavors (or one of their doorway websites) and was very disappointed because I found out that the flavors were not true extracts, e.g. blueberry from blueberries, but instead constructed by mixing esters extracted from a variety of plant sources and then formulated to mimic the flavor of actual fruits. The fact that my order arrived weeks late didn't help either.
Recently, another chocolatier alerted me to a source of actual cold-extracted organic (and incredibly concentrated) fruit, herb, and nut extracts that are simply excellent. The website is called Medicine Flower, and the link to the flavorings is: http://www.medicineflower.com/flavorextracts.html
They also offer wholesale pricing for manufacturers.
I've made truffles with 16 of their flavorings so far, and am stunned by the superb quality and authenticity of their concentrated flavors. My favorites are (in descending order, but all wonderful): blueberry, banana, elderberry, jasmine, guava, strawberry, raspberry, fig, plum, and black currant.
These are a priceless resource for the chocolate chef.
My highest recommendations!
Hi Delcour!
This recipe worked for me a few months ago. It's kinda Nutella-ish:
home-made chocolate hazelnut spread
Hope you like it.
Hello everyone,
I am trying to make chocolate at home, and I would like to try make chocolate spread with my grinder. Is anyone tried or have a recipe?
Thank you in advance,
Thomas
Thanks Adam,
I have seen the mould in chocolat-chocolat but have not come across Tomric as yet - so thank you, I will drop them a mail to see if they have what I am looking for.
Karen
Hi Clay,
Sorry, yes I am looking for professional grade polycarbonate. I would need about 25 moulds to start with.
Karen -
It would also be helpful to know how many molds you are looking for - and I assume you are looking for professional-grade polycarbonate?
This has a textured pattern but it's very close to your size requirements: http://tomric.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=square&page=2&product_id=3557
Breakable square bar but again close in size: http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/chocolate-molds/chocolate-molds-bars/p16876410.html
Hi,
Does anyone know where I can source plain, square chocolate bar moulds? Ideally about 85g & sized 85*85 without patterns or inserts, to create 'slab' bars of chocolate.
I have contacted suppliers all across Europe & have had no luck to date, I can get 100g bars but not 85g.
If anyone knows of a supplier, I would be over the moon!
Thanks
Karen
Bean and Goose Chocolate
It can help firm up/set a ganache but will still give a good mouthfeel for the ganache because cocoa butter melts near body temperature
Hi,
I wanted to know what does cocoa butter bring when you add it in a ganache?
Hi Connor, best of luck in your new endeavor 
. any ideas where you would you be buying your cacao beans from ?
Connor -
ChocolateWeek in London is coming up and is the perfect time to connect with the London chocolate community. Chocolate Unwrapped is now the London Salon du Chocolat - but check in with the organizers ( Nudge PR ) about volunteering and the like - a great way to make introductions and get caught up on the scene.
Hi Connor, it's doubtful I'll be getting to London anytime soon but would love to talk cacao sometime! I am just starting up as a chocolatier too - only seen your post this morning.
All best and good luck,
Jo 
Hello All,
I've just signed up to The Chocolate Life and I'm also just starting up a tiny little chocolate business here in London.
I'd love to meet up with anyone else who's on the chocolate scene here in the city.
Say hi! Let's go stuff our faces at the William Curley dessert bar or something.
Best,
Connor
It's time for me to start looking in to caramel wrapping equipment.
I need something with a small footprint and something under $5,000 used
Is there anything like this out there? I saw Package Machinery's tabletop wrapper, but at almost $20,000 it's way out of budget.
Even something just semi-automatic would be great.
Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated!
I press all my own butters... and I go so far as them being Plantation-Specific, not just origin-specific. It is outrageously expensive to do this, and if I weren't in the country of origin, I would not do it. There's a video in my profile of the process.
And I don't use it in all of my chocolate, only in eating chocolate. For couverture we use a local butter that is still quite nice, but nowhere near as awesome as the butters pressed from prime beans.
Even so, deodorized butter has its place in our operation. For beans that we can't get enough of to press the butter from, in goes the DO butter. We also use it for making a white chocolate that goes in ganaches and fillings.
Julie;
There is a lot of deceptive labelling and naming in the chocolate industry. "Percentage" and "origin" are just acouple misusedterms. To battle that, I have since day one, put the exact ingredients and their percentages by weight on the bars my company makes.
Brad
This is what I suspected. But for me it then raises the question of how honest the labelling is.
For instance an 80% pure Single Origin, from Land A. This could have 40% cocoa butter from unspecified sources. So in actual fact only 40% cocoa mass would be from the the Land of Origin.
Therefore I would like to see clearly on the packaging..
Percentage cocoa mass from land of origin
Percentage sugar
Percentage added cocoa butter... from land of origin
Percentage added cocoa butter... from unspecified sources.
Butter is like any other commodity - they'll produce what the majority users want. Much of it is indeed deodorized - i'd be hard pressed to say if most of it is, however - but certain a lot of it is. Almost all of it, deodorized or not - is blended to try to achieve consistency. Cocoa beans are not always fermented, not always ripe, sometimes infested, sometimes rotten, etc. Origin notwithstanding, all these things result in different physical and sensory profiles - blending helps round those out to achieve a stable commodity.
Shawn presses in the US BTW. His cocoa powder certainly won't go to waste, it's in another of his products 8-)
This is an interesting thread, and I'd like to add my two bits...
There has been no mention yet of deodorized, or non-deodorized cocoa butter. Sebastian would know better, butmy understanding isthat most of the cocoa butter used today in chocolate is deodorized, because most of it is made from cocoa beans that nobody would really want made into chocolate and by itself smells horrible.
If in fact the cocoa butter IS deodorized, then origin is for the most part irrelevant as the cocoa butter is used solely for it's fluidityand crystalization properties. It in essence then brings absolutely nothing to the chocolate in the way of flavour.
I read in here that Askinosie makes their own cocoa butter. Interesting indeed. Is it made in the US, or at origin? I would certainly like to do some financial costing on THAT cocoa butter if it's made in the US! Well.... No... Not really. Paying a high price for, the beans and their import costs - all by weight -only to press out the fat and leaving 60% of the bean as waste doesn't seem viable to me unless they are doing it to make their own cocoa powder, which in that case would make sense. Sometimes I wish I could make my own cocoa powder.
Anyway, given the typical uses for cocoa butter, and the source of the cocoa butter it does make sense that there is very little single origin cocoa butter around.
Cheers
Brad
We add cocoa butter in small quantities to our chocolate because we feel it brings out more of the flavors we are seeking. In addition it makes tempering much easier.
Callebaut, with the purchase of Petra, is now the worlds largest grinder - all of their beans can't be flavor grade 8-) It's always either the beans, the process, or the storage 8-)
That is perhaps going too far. But I am not happy to buy a 75% Single Origin bar, if only 40% is actually cocoa mass from the land in question and 35% cocoa butter...unspecified.
I would like to see the actual percentages of cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter etc. And if the cocoa butter is not from the same origin, I would like to know.
Personally I cannot understand, yet, why extra cocoa butter would be added.
Well the companies concerned are Valrhona and Callebaut. Both offer Single Origin. so it is not per se the beans.
Why not? Sugar cane grows in huge quantities in central america and the carribean; palm sugar in africa and asia, etc. I've seen cows on every continent except Antarctica, and soybeans are one of the most abundant crops on the planet (lecithin). I bet you could even get an orchid to grow in la republica dominicana and harvest some vanilla, although i've never looked for one there 8)
Could be a function of conching, but remember that the bulk couverature that you're buying from large industrial manufacturer is likely made using predominately a blend of african or african and indonesian beans - which aren't sourced for their unique delicate flavor parameters - rather because they can be purchased in huge volumes and the 'rough spots' blended out in massive mixing tanks.
There are exceptions, of course, but without the details of the specific mfr, i'm going to place my bets on the 99.75% of the product that's on the market 8-)
Askinosie presses their own cocoa butter and they use it in their chocolate. I agree that to be strictly origin chocolate that the cocoa butter should come from the same origin as the cacao. So for those who add cocoa butter, maybe only Askinosie is truly single origin.
One chocolate maker I know recently said that, in his opinion, to be truly single origin then even the sugar should come from the same source. But that may be going too far. If that were the case then then no company would be able to call themselves single origin.
The reason I asked, is that at the present moment I have no conch. So I am looking at working from couverture. However most of the major couverture producers, seem, to me, to over work/conch the chocolate. That way it is super smooth, but the aromas and flavours that make a particular bean/origin special are almost gone.
For me that is so disappointing. And it will force me into conching my own chocolate much sooner than I would like.
