>Alex Rast wrote
..

>... 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.

Well, doing things in small scale is the beginning of any project to
check the feasibility if it works,..... but often the results does not
comes out similarly when its scaled up using an equipment suited for
such purpose.
In the past I made fondant from half a kilogram to 5 kilogram batch
where in the latter I used a big wooden paddle/oar to stir the mass
on a water cooled cooling table. It's a lot of work and even with the
care of the operation I still can't come identical to the
characteristics to the fondant made institutionally.
The only importance for such operation is its instructional value so
that anyone can get a feel how the sugar mass gradually become opaque
due to the agitation and formation of very fine sugar crystals.
In those cases I made it using the low dextrose equivalents syrups such
as DE ( 36-43 )and high DE( 55-63) glucose syrup but the results are
not that different.
Now as the regular standard grade glucose was the norm( 42-43 DE) then
I never bothered to use the 63 DE for that reason again.
Now if you use the sugar cubes and granulated sugar, I did not see
much difference either the end products become opaque when manipulated
to attain the fondant desired qualities .


>>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.

....I thinks this selections of different chocolate brands as raw
materials for their confections is true to small cholatiers but rare
for large manufacturers.



>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.

Beans from the same source does not mean that cocoa beans bought by two
manufacturers are used in equally the same manufacturer.
A chocolate formulation is not as simple as :
Cocoa beans, sugar milk etc... but there are specific bean blends for
every chocolate types made by them.
Besides Most of these institution don't buy from one supplier but
from a wide lot. Then they blend the beans according to its attributes
as dictated by their formulation requirements and in the end it will
never be the same for two manufacturers
It's the same with the bakery, large bakeries can get the same flour
from the same source ( and uses the same branded name) but the bakery
product come out with different tastes and other qualities .!



>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.

In many product development based sensory analysis the consumer panel
is just taken secondarily and is always done by the marketing people to
measure if the product is liked by the consumers before the eve put in
their marketing programs .
The developers already had in mind what the customers wants and the
consumer panel is used often for confirmatory purposes.
..



>.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.

Indeed decision relies not only from the result of technical assessors
but also from potential customers inputs ; and in many cases marketing
people will even follow their gut feel and think that if the public
wants it , it must be good for the business? They will do everything (
including )urging the management that the new product should be
produced
\Wholly technically based assessment is not risk free; developers can
be become attached to the attributes of the product from their
technical evaluation that the sometimes forget if the consumers still
wants the product. This is true in some specialty chocolates such as
for certain clientele( diabetics, those with food allergies etc).
Unfortunately the market in this section is not that large.


>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.

That's what make it sell....good marketing strategy and good
labeling/packaging.


>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

Well it had been my experience that many Europeans chocolate
connoisseurs don't like American chocolates.
I am not sure if its politically motivated or what....but they have
these notions that Hershey destroyed the American palate.<grin>

>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.

>From the point of chocolate formulations....American and European
chocolates are not the same
Many chocolatiers from the European continent had some aversion for the
American made chocolates;
The same also with other chocolate manufacturing institution from
countries such as Australia ,Japan. Etc..

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.


....>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 alcohol 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".

This issue of additives sometimes get blurred with chocolate
manufacturers....If it does not sound like a chemical.... Or just too
commonly used its forgotten as a food additive for functional reasons.
....

>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.


DIY chocolate manufacture is not an impossibility ...
In the past I had toyed with making chocolate in a way suitable for
home users interested in making their own chocolate from the scratch...

Using the wok to roast the beans, then using the meat mincer to grind
the beans to paste by repeated passes, and in other cases using the
food processors to do the particle reductions but the results were
unsatisfactory. Its gritty .
.. I have used a pasta machine as an improvised 2 roll refiner but the
resulting products is still gritty.
One major reason is that the chocolate manufacturing equipments are
made with high precision such as the roll distances , roll speed, roll
temperatures and roll speed differentials. Etc.
Conche machines does not come in small sizes that any home chocolate
"would be"manufactuer could afford as its expensive and has no
other uses.

With conching.....
there are ways to improvse such process....you can conche the
chocolate by using the planetary mixers which run continuously for at
least 8 hours. Would(it be wise enough to destroy) your kitchen aide
mixers to do such things aside with the cake paddle improvised to
sweep the chocolate paste around the mixing bowl evenly?
But How can you attach a heat jacket to your mixing bowl? A hot water
bath is not good as the steam may condense may come into contact with
partially destroying it,nor you could apply that to many kitchen aide
and even Hobart made machines designed for chocolate use.
Another thing is
How can you measure miniscule quantity of lecithin and PGPR(
polyglycerol poly ricinoleate) if you don't own an analytical
balance as one of your measuring equipmentsn for home scale chocolate
manufacture.
Another very important question is how can you attain the 15-30
microns unit particle size of your chocolate before you try to conche
it in your supposedly strong planetary mixers with the cake paddle
and bowl modified for such purpose for hours?

Its more common for home bakers or small bakery businesses to buy the
institutional Hobart mixer and even ovens as they are cheaper and had
many other uses than special precision chocolate manufacturing
equipment like Conche and refiner machines made by such names like
Macintyre, Friggessa,Lehmann and Buhler that has a very limited
application potential outside its specified use.

But if anybody is determined to make his own chocolate from cacao beans
you can invest
they should insure that they can get at least a laboratory scale 3-roll
refiner( or much better a 5 roll refiner if there is ) to insure they
can practically get the same particle size and resulting mouth feel as
the institutionally made chocolates feasibly.
Then they should ensure that they have a really extra sturdy mixer
with the bowl with a electric heat jacketed ( 50-70 degree C)
mixing bowl to conche the chocolate for several hours non stop.
IMO
That is reason ...why chocolate is considered not only food of the
gods but also.....MADE BY THE GODS!<grin>... as only the institutional
chocolate manufacturer ( the 'gods') could do it properly <grin>.