FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Recipe Wanted: Chocolate Coating for Candies, etc

at Mon, 06 Dec 2004 15:50:47 GMT in
>,
(MGot326225) wrote :

>What do I need to get or to do to make the chocolate coating for candies
>like nougat, etc?

First, get good-quality "couverture" chocolate. That sounds like a fancy
technical term but in truth just about any decent chocolate bar is
couverture. Note that I said *chocolate* bar, not *candy* bar. Thus, a
Snicker's is a candy bar, where a Ghirardelli Bittersweet chocolate bar is
a chocolate bar. In other words, just chocolate, nothing else.

Good-quality couverture comes from many companies, and in various formats.
Ordinary bars, with a shape designed for straight eating, are common. Then
there are blocs, large, over-1-kg bricks of chocolate, often broken up into
massive hunks and either put in bulk bins, bags, or shrink-wrapped. Next
are "baking bars", much smaller than a bloc, but bigger than an eating bar.
The most common size is 275g, packed as a very thick, rodlike bar. Another
format sometimes seen are baking discs or bits, not the same as chips,
which are small, flat, coin-like pieces of chocolate, usually boxed or
bagged. They're convenient but generally expensive and they lose freshness
more quickly.

Among the companies that produce good couverture, they fall into 3
categories: premium consumer, high-end, and elite.

The first group generally produces on a large scale and, while definitely
aiming to produce a high-quality product, also have other considerations in
mind such as production efficiencies, costs, and product uniformity. In
this category are most of the good, large chocolate companies :
Ghirardelli, Callebaut, Lindt. Prices for these will be more than standard
brands like Hershey's or Nestle - about $2.50 or so for a 100g bar.

High-end chocolate companies produce on a smaller scale, generally, and
have a more single-minded focus on quality, regardless of cost. They
usually aim for a more distinctive, individualised flavour (note that this
is not the same as a better or more refined flavour, it simply means that
it's got more immediately recognisable characteristics). This category
takes in many of the well-known prestige brands you see in high-end
supermarkets and specialty stores : Valrhona, El Rey, Scharffen Berger. The
price for these tends to be pretty steep - $3.50 to $4.00 for 100g.

Elite chocolate companies pursue the very best chocolate with an almost
fanatical obsession, going often to extreme lengths to find very specific
varietals. The flavours are usually highly characterised and strongly
dependent on the specific bean or blend. The chocolate will certainly be
superb, but may require much more careful selection because with such
distinctive flavours there will be chocolates that work much better or much
worse in a given application. High-end supermarkets and specialty stores in
major urban centers may carry one or 2 of these brands, but usually not
all: Domori, Michel Cluizel, Amedei, Pralus, and various others. Prices are
shocking: at minimum you will probably pay $5.00/100g and it goes up from
there...

You will need to temper the chocolate. For that you need a bowl, a palette
knife or thin metal spatula, and a marble board or other smooth, nonporous
work surface. A chocolate tempering thermometer is also handy.

What you do is, break up the chocolate into the bowl and melt it over a pot
of simmering water. Remove the bowl from the pot, and transfer about 1/2 of
the chocolate to your work surface. Spade it around with the palette knife
or spatula until it just begins to solidify, then quickly scrape it back
into the melted chocolate remaining in the bowl. Stir, and *immediately*
coat your items, working quickly. (The chocolate sets fast at this point)

If you have a tempering thermometer, you can do more accurate temperature
profiling. You'll want to bring the chocolate up to a high temperature in
the bowl - about 120F/48C. Then you'll bring the chocolate on the surface
to a low temperature - about 83F/28C. Finally, once you've stirred it back
into the rest of the chocolate, you'll want it to come to an intermediate
temperature - about 88F/31C. There are minor fluctuations in these ranges
depending on the chocolate you're working with.

You can also shell out the big bucks and get a tempering machine such as
the ChocoVision Revolation - $500 for a low-end model, $1300 and up for the
high-end versions. They make the work much easier, if you want to spend the
dollars. If you're planning on doing a lot of coating for years to come,
don't even hesitate - buy one immediately.

>Would melting semisweet chocolate chips do just fine?

No. These are not designed for this application - they have much less cocoa
butter and coat poorly. May I ask why you were considering chocolate chips?
A lot of people seem to get the same idea and I'd just like to gather some
data on what makes people think of chocolate chips right away.

Also, don't get cheap chocolate. It generally will work badly. Chocolate
coating candies isn't an area where it pays to economise.

--
Alex Rast

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