Kashino is a master at chocolate tempering and artwork who puts the pros to shame but it's only through intense study and practice that his knowledge and ability to work with chocolate are able to shine!
What is Chocolate Exactly?
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Chateau Seika's Cocoa Plantations on the Ivory Coast
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Chocolate is made from the seed pods of the Theobroma cacao tree that has been cultivated in Mexico, Central and South America. It is Harvested by cutting the pods from the tree and the the cocao beans and pulp are removed and allowed to ferment.
Chocolate makers use the harvested beans to make couverture chocolate and chocolatiers use the couverture to make chocolate candies.
Types of Chocolate
Milk Chocolate: 25% dry cocoa solids, milk powder or condensed milk, burns easily
Dark Chocolate: 15% chocolate liquor or 35% cocoa solids
Semi-Sweet Chocolate: dark chocolate with low sugar content
Bitter-Sweet Chocolate: chocolate liquor with some sugar and more cocoa butter and vanilla, more liquor and less sugar than semisweet chocolate but interchangeable in baking
White Chocolate: cocoa butter, sugar, milk, no cocoa solids, no theobromines and can be consumed by animals.
Cocoa Powder: natural and dutch cocoa powder both are pulverized defatted chocolate liquor with dutch processed with alkali to neutralize its natural acidity and requiring baking soda for natural cocoa to create a leavening action during baking
Compound Chocolate: coca combined with vegetable fat to replace cocoa butter and is used in candy bar coatings
Raw Chocolate: unprocessed chocolate that hasn't been heated or mixed with other ingredients
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Couveture Kashino Gathered on Their European Tour
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Couverture Chocolate has a high amount of cocoa butter and is used by professionals for things like dips, coats, molds and garnishes. It is a very high quality of chocolate that can be purchased tempered or untempered and depending on what it is used for, may need to be tempered again.
Do not substitute when other chocolate is required because the high cocoa butter content may change the final sweet product.
Tempering
When using chocolate for molds, dips or coats you want to give it a smooth and glossy finish and make it more resistant to breaking and melting. This is done by heating and cooling the chocolate and cooling. Usually, this consists of breaking the chocolate by grating or pounding and then melting it down. It is important for water to stay away from the chocolate during the entire process and to not overheat the chocolate. Tempering takes plenty of practice to do well and properly.
Chocolate Sculptures
Chocolate sculptures are becoming a very popular form of art in both the culinary and the exhibit art world. It takes not only great knowledge of chocolate and how it behaves but plenty of practice and physical fitness - chocolate is really heavy!
Food Network Challenge has even had competitions where chocolate sculptures have been created around a theme much like in the Cake Grand Prix!
People around the world have erected great statues and to-scale replicas of famous buildings with chocolate and there have even been a few instances of life-size houses and bathrooms built of chocolate (for display only!)
Kashino's Tips to Ichigo from the Anime:
- Chocolate will separate if it's heated too much. Never let it go above 60 degrees.
- Heating chocolate above boiling water allows water vapor to get absorbed in to the chocolate.
- The quality of the chocolate drops as soon as moisture gets in, even from vapor.
- Don't waste your leftover chocolate, turn it in to chocolate chaud instead. It makes cleanup easier and doesn't waste any chocolate.
References:
Wow, you must have done a lot of work and research to this!
ReplyDelete... you. have. no. idea.
ReplyDelete... I kind of forgot for a bit that I was a student and I had actual work and studying to do... -_-
You forgot that white chocolate can only be cooked from 35-40 degrees
ReplyDeleteWow good information, but it is mostly important to know the facts if you want to make you own type of chocolate.
ReplyDeleteGood work on the information, but just don't forget that it is really good to know the basics then to advance to be able to make your own chocolates.
ReplyDelete