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at Thu, 15 Dec 2005 06:49:35 GMT in
.com>,
(Chembake) wrote :

>Alex Rast wrote
>>Although it must be said that making one's own fondant is instructive
>>for the same basic technique used to temper chocolate (at least the
>>slab and spatula method). Hand-making fondant is certainly
>>labour-intensive so if you want to minimise effort it would be better
>>to buy it. There are 2 reasons to try making it at home: if you want to
>>gain technique in making fondant yourself, or if you have certain
>>flavour and/or ingredient specifications you can't find in something
>>you can buy.
>
>... A base fondant is supposed to be neutral not flavored .... besides
>what ingredients specification in particular would you expect from an
>institutionally made fondant.?

That's kind of the point, isn't it? The idea would be that your
requirements need to be pretty exotic in order for making it at home to be
useful from a *specifications* POV. But there are people who want certain
things done in a certain way. So there's no harm in experimenting to see if
you can meet your objectives with the DIY approach.

>>IMHO ganache definitely benefits from using good-tasting chocolate,
>>because in a ganache the flavour of the chocolate really stands out and
>>if you're using one that doesn't taste good, it will be instantly
>>apparent.
>
>Well if a certain chocolatier is not experienced or skilled enough
>that he will plunge into using ersatz chocolate then that will be the
>case.; but that is unlikely for a competent chocolate craftsman as the
>first qualification of his craftsmanship is to be able to understand
>what a good chocolate as based on his experience but it does not mean
>that its necessarily expensive.

Unfortunately, for people in a home setting, quite often they really
haven't tasted enough chocolate to know right away that changing the
chocolate itself may be necessary. They can readily identify the
difference, and will instantly know that one chocolate is good and another
bad when you have them try it, but they might be mystified as to why a
given recipe or item isn't turning out as well as what they can get from a
professional. I've seen a lot of people have a tendency to lump things into
very broad categories, so that chocolate is chocolate (or perhaps they make
the distinction between dark and milk and that's as far as they go), they
use something truly bad in a truffle or other sensitive confection, and
then are puzzled as to what to do to improve it. They then embark on a lot
of ill-fated ventures that achieve nothing, sometimes giving up in
frustration. That's why it's worth it when starting out to try at least a
variety of chocolates and also not to go only for the cheapest brands.

>>Even when first starting out, though, I
>>don't think it's a bad idea to experiment with different brands at
>>different price points, to get ?an idea for what the range of flavours
>>and handling characteristics are.
>
>If you have the money to spare for such venture why not?
>the bottom line of chocolate confectionery business is that you earn a
>margin out of your efforts to sustain your business not to be doing
>Santa Claus <grin>..

Well, the key point here is that in a professional setting, you want to
have enough margin in your core business to afford some small-scale
experimentation. Most of this will be stuff that never reaches the shelf or
display case. You're just trying out a variant to see what you can do.
That, in any case, shouldn't be very expensive, because you're not actually
making this on a production scale. Sometimes if an experiment is
particularly successful you would do a small production run to test-market
and see what the reception was. It might then make it to full-scale
production if the results of the test market showed that it could sustain a
profit.

>However if you are just a chocolate lover and had a money to splurge to
>satisfy for a certain chocolate cravings .... Then go for it!

Meanwhile on the home level that kind of experimentation tends to be more
sporadic but every now and then it's worth it - just so long as you're not
planning on making the results a critical piece for, say, a dinner where
the boss is coming over, or a wedding reception, or some other encounter
where you need to be certain of your outcome.

>>One vital point to understand about expensive chocolate is that more
>>often than not the difference is not in the basic taste but in how
>>characteristic it is....
>
>I never had any attachment to any chocolate brands as I leave those
>notions to t people who can't make the chocolate( for themselves)
>from the raw materials.

Generally, that's the majority of both consumers and confectioners. As you
know the number of actual chocolate producers themselves is small and so by
and large you must choose some suppliers.

>It just chocolate chemistry and technology....pure and simple ....not
>esoteric names that has nothing to do with chocolates but only to
>improve its packaging value.

The esoteric name by itself means very little but if a chocolate
manufacturer can establish a strong brand identity and style then it can
mean something. For instance, I can know that a Cluizel chocolate is likely
to be very balanced and refined, that a Scharffen Berger chocolate is
likely to be strongly fruity, and that an Hachez chocolate will have
superiour texture but mild flavour. I can also know that, as a general
rule, Cluizel is somewhat better, overall, than Hachez, which in turn is
somewhat better, overall, than Hershey's. These are broad categorisations
but they help put each brand into a position. Some larger companies,
however - e.g. Callebaut and Lindt, have a very wide array of different
formulations with different flavours, so you can't pin them down. They're
good as primary sources because they tend to be cheap and you can usually
find a chocolate that matches the style you're looking for, unlike the
"higher-end" chocolatiers where the style they choose is the style you get.

....
> . In the end the cost of the raw materials the prestige of the
>manufacturer , the quantity being made and the variation and
>uniqueness in processing will reflect on its price.

Which can be a plus or a minus. A high-priced chocolate from a boutique
manufacturer can end up being only average, in which case you've blown a
lot of money for a chocolate you could just as readily have gotten
anywhere. But a recognisable chocolate of extreme quality from such a
manufacturer might be able to justify its cost - even if it's only in the
marketing value of bringing customers in the door. Amedei Chuao is my
favourite example of that. A 1kg bloc isn't cheap - indeed, it's
sufficiently expensive that you have to ask seriously whether this is
justified. No doubt they're making a pretty hefty margin on their brand
name. But the chocolate is supreme - one of the best anywhere - and it's
got strong brand- and type- identification, enough that it will both bring
people in the door and have them coming back for more.

From a home standpoint, again, such a chocolate is worth it for specific
occasions because yes, it's expensive, but it delivers the goods. But you
could just as easily end up spending far too much for Dagoba Conacado and
be stuck with what is really a very poor chocolate indeed. It's vital not
to buy into a brand name.

>Consumers might disagree..... they say....we are willing to pay the
>price but how large is the market and will the demand sustain the
>investment for a widespread manufacture of expensive chocolates ?

Well, to judge by the emergence of multiple boutique chocolatiers within
the last few years, the answer to that would seem to be "yes", at least
from a standpoint of overall market. If, OTOH, you're thinking of starting
your own business to get in on the action, you really have to find some
sort of unique sales position because otherwise you'll probably be
competing with a host of other, equally talented, people.

>Besides the supply of well flavored cacao beans used to attain this
>well flavored chocolates is scarcer or produced in least quantity
>compared to the bulk beans.

It must be said that this is one reason why you can advance at least some
rationale for the belief in brand names. A smaller chocolate manufacturer
can afford to be more selective with supply, and thus potentially create
better chocolate. However, the end result isn't a given. Dagoba Conacado
and Domori Chacao Absolute get beans from the same source, but where the
first is abysmal, the second is divine - which goes to show you that source
material isn't enough by itself.

>>Depending on what you want to achieve, this could be
>>either a plus or a minus....It's not going to be an "average" taste
>> though - which means
>>that some people are likely to like it more than others.
>
>Chocolate taste from the consumer panel is a subjective matter in many
>cases... erroneous and does not reflect the true quality of the
>chocolate .

I disagree strongly. If "quality" is such an esoteric concept that it can
only be understood by a few initiates, then of what value is it? In the
final analysis, a quality chocolate should taste good. From my POV the only
realistic criterion for tasting good that makes sense is that there would
be broad consensus among the people who tried it that their reaction was
positive. So if a relatively inexperienced person tried a chocolate and was
put off by it, that chocolate isn't as good as it's made out to be. And
just as the danger of excessive brand identification is strong with the
novice, the danger of overintellectualising the experience is strong with
the cognoscenti. People with lots of experience and jaded palates get led
into believing that something unusual or exotic is good and pronounce it a
resounding success - and this distinction is lost on the common man who
quite plainly observes that it's bad - usually just plain wierd. Hopefully
a tasting panel can be conducted so as to minimise either preconceived
notions or the presence of bias.

> The marketing people are shrewdly exploiting the naivety of
>the normal consumer<grin>.

Here I do unfortunately have to agree. It's a sad reality that all too many
"tastings" are conducted not to *form* an opinion but to *justify* one.
They've set up the tasting so as to lead the tasters to a predetermined
conclusion, one that exhalts the value of their product. That's not an
accurate or scientific study, nor, do I think, is it in the best interest
of the company. A company learns nothing if it produces an only so-so
product and conducts "surveys" intended to prove its superiority. In that
case they're willfully blind to their own mediocrity and will find out
their error when sales in the market are tepid (or no better than the
competition). Unfortunately by that point they may already have too much
invested into their product line to be able to change, something that could
easily have been done to produce a more acceptable product that would have
garnered greater market share had it been done earlier in the process.

>.I leave that area to the objective assessment of the trained taste
>panel (who are setting aside their emotion ) to give me reliable
>scientific and statistics based information as a basis for a
>particular new chocolate formulations.
> The scientifically trained taste panel report coupled with rigorous
>statistical analysis carries more weight than what a hordes of
>individuals from the consumer panel says....

As I point out, even the "best-trained" panel can come in with
preconceptions, or at least be jaded. You definitely want to be rigourous
in your analysis, however, I think you want to do that with statistics
drawn at least in part from common consumers whenever you can.

>>These same characteristics means that if you're making flavoured
>>chocolates, picking a good matching varietal can make or break your
>>chocolate. For instance, if you wanted a cinnamon chocolate, picking
>>Domori Porcelana as your chocolate base would be a disaster. The
>>cinnamon would completely overwhelm Porcelana's fine delicate flavour.
>>But Domori Carenero Superior would be a match made in heaven for the
>>same piece...
>
>Those fancy names never excite me...If supposing I am one of the panel
>personnel .I would rather have those items titled under a code name so
>that it will not excite the tasters nor influence their decision
>making.

It's not the brand name that counts but the profile of the chocolates
involved. Domori's Porcelana and Carenero Superior make for a particularly
instructive comparison in this case because their characteristics are
clear-cut within the stylistic choices of a particular manufacturer, but
that they are from Domori is material only insofar as the particular style
Domori uses makes these chocolates a good or a bad fit for a particular
application. In a tasting setting, however, yes, you'd want to mask the
brand as much as possible. Unfortunately, since most brands come in readily
identifiable formats (often their logo is moulded into the chocolate
piece), that's hard.

>Fancy sounding chocolate names may delude an ordinary American
>consumers but may fail to gain appreciation from overseas consumers.

Right there I think is an example of a bias based on ethicity - the
assumption that U.S. audiences are more easily duped. I think it's probably
the same everywhere - that populations in every country you care to name
are about as easily influenced by marketing tactics as any other.

>Those ideas might be true in the United States and the surrounding
>areas but Europe and other developed countries have a different
>perspective that is meant by a good chocolate

I wouldn't assume that Europeans are any more sophisticated than Americans,
at least not when devising a survey. It's very, very difficult to design a
scientific study to measure sophistication - because what is meant by that
is itself variable. There are probably national preferences as to basic
chocolate flavour, but I don't think one can conclude anything as to what
that implies about their perception of quality.

>>I disagree sharply on the idea that adding a liqueur is an effective
>>default strategy to improving flavour. At least to me, alcohol and
>>chocolate tend to clash...
>
>That is only your personal and incidentally a subjective assessment.

Definitely.

I point it out to illustrate that, given that subjective tastes vary,
adding liqueur isn't a good *default* strategy - i.e. one that you apply
semi-automatically, with the belief that it is going to be an overall
improvement to the general population.

....

>>With *careful* choice
>>some liqueurs can be introduced, but only in the case where the
>>objective is to highlight the liqueur itself, not as a background
>>flavour enhancer. Some chocolates, ganache in particular, are quite
>>perishable and so some commercial chocolatiers use the liqueurs as a
>>preservative, which again I think isn't warranted for most situtations.
>>Better to have realistic expiration dates.
>
>Preservative action of liqueurs is based on its ability of ethanol to
>lower water activity of the fillings and there are other means to
>attain that in the industry not strictly relying in dairy cream but in
>combinations also on industrial fractionated butter fat and sometimes
>the use of glycerin and sorbitol to confer the same water activity
>lowering..

Yeah, you sometimes see that as well. Techniques which have less impact on
the flavour I tend to prefer. The use of alchohol is one that on an
ingredient list doesn't stand out quite so obviously because people tend
not to think of it as an "additive" in the same way. It's a prime
illustration of the underlying point - the concept of an "additive" as such
is a vague term. Really, *any* ingredient in a recipe is technically an
"additive".

....
>
>>Definitely worth the trouble to get the refined paste. There are no
>>units suitable for an in-home application that can do even a halfway
>>decent job at grinding nuts. I think it's a bit frustrating in this age
>>of every conceivable kitchen gadget that you can't buy a halfway decent
>>grinder, although I'm guessing that the reason for this is that the
>>market is microscopic.
>
>Well many consumers don't understand the importance of nut paste in
>chocolates and being difficult to improvise its preparation then it
>will never be a part of an ordinary chocolate connoisseur repertoire
>of chocolate confection preparation .

I would like to see a greater availability (or at least visibility) of
certain things for the home user. Part of the difficulty facing such an
individual is his inability, unless he goes to extraordinary lengths, to
get and/or indeed even know about certain key components, tools, etc. etc.
On this NG you regularly get people asking how they can make chocolate from
scratch at home, and then you have to explain to them the ins and outs of
the industrial process and how unless they're willing to make a hefty
investment they're not going to be able to do it. And yet there's no
reason, *a priori* that this should be impossible - it's just that the
equipment-makers aren't building anything for low-volume output.

--
Alex Rast

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