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at Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:27:09 GMT in >,
(Dee Randall) wrote :

>
>"Alex Rast" > wrote in message
.. .
>> at Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:14:12 GMT in >,
>> lid (Margaret Suran) wrote :
>>
>>>Today when I went grocery shopping, I wanted to get a couple of
>>>packages of the Ghiradelli Double Chocolate chips. ... instead there
>>>were packages of "60% Cocoa Bittersweet Chocolate" chips ...

>> ... they're the replacement for the Double Chocolate chips.
>> Ghirardelli has chosen to trade off improved flavour and mouthfeel for
>> poorer shape maintenance during baking.

<deletia>

>>Is this an improvement? Depends on your POV.
>> --
>> Alex Rast
>
>Perhaps with the national interest in chocolate in percentages is also a
>reason to change the packaging.

Yeah, but you could have done that without changing the formulation.

> I checked out a book from the library
>which I read much of last night, Alice Medrich, author, of "Bitter Sweet
> .. Recipes and Tale from a Life in Chocolate." She gives recipes many
>of which include the variations for the different percentages of
>chocolate. I must admit it looks very persuasive, given her
>creditentials.
>
Medrich is pretty good, overall. She has a very definite style, though. She
isn't interested in following "classic" recipes per se, and so if you want
a solid grounding in basic technique following the tried-and-true methods,
it isn't the best choice. She has recipes for the same *end products* -
thus you'll see recipes for truffles, brownies, etc..., but these recipes
follow her own conventions.

What this means is that they're somewhat more difficult to tinker with. One
of the nice things about basic classic recipes is that they give you a nice
reference point from which to experiment.

I get the feeling, too, that she tends to "fall in love" with recipes
without ever really investigating if they could be better. That is, she
finds or gets a recipe that elicits a strong positive reaction from her,
and then simply reproduces it without really experimenting. This would be
consistent with what I said earlier. So I find her recipes to be a mixed-
bag of ones which are great and ones that are merely good.

I also wonder how much research she does. At least one recipe she described
she described as an ultimate chocolate experience, without, it seems to me,
ever noticing that all she'd done is end up recreating Rigo Jancsi in a
slightly modified form. (It must be said, btw, that Rigo Jancsi *is* pretty
much the ultimate chocolate cake)

I know I've sounded somewhat negative here but actually I'm pretty positive
about her work - it's mostly a case of that there are only so many ways to
say "great", "awesome" etc... and small nitpicks are much more
multifarious.

--
Alex Rast

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