hi all-

i currently use guittard gourmet bittersweet as my all-purpose chocolate.
however, i find that it is too viscous to use in a chocolate glaze. my
glaze, now matter which recipe i use, inevitably turns out too thick. it's
pourable, but definitely leans toward the gloppy side. can anyone recommend
a comparable chocolate (in price and flavor) that is less viscous?

thanks,
dexygus

at Tue, 13 Jul 2004 01:50:13 GMT in
> ,
(dexygus) wrote :

>hi all-
>
>i currently use guittard gourmet bittersweet as my all-purpose
>chocolate. however, i find that it is too viscous to use in a chocolate
>glaze. my glaze, now matter which recipe i use, inevitably turns out
>too thick. it's pourable, but definitely leans toward the gloppy side.
>can anyone recommend a comparable chocolate (in price and flavor) that
>is less viscous?
>

It's vital to see what recipe you wish to use for your glaze.

Generally, for low viscosity you want a high cocoa butter content. Be aware
that Gourmet Bittersweet is already a low-viscosity formulation, so you may
have more difficulty than you think getting any better. It's possible to
get higher cocoa butter contents from, e.g. Domori, but not so that they
meet your price criteria. On that score Guittard is hard to beat - being a
domestic product, they're much cheaper than the imports.

As to flavour, it depends a lot on what you mean. If you're asking for
similar profile, you can find chocolates that meet that goal, but they're
not going to be an exact match. For instance, Lindt 85% is similar, but
considerably less sweet (as one would expect for 85% vs. 63%) and more
nutty. If you want similar strength, that's pretty easy, although Gourmet
Bittersweet is very intense for a 63%, and in general you need to up your
percentage to the 70%-class to get similar intensities. If you want similar
quality of flavour (i.e. you like the flavour a lot and would like one
equally good), that's hard because GB is really one of the best chocolates
on the market.

But for the fact of its considerably lower sugar content I'd go with the
Lindt 85%, because it's got a similar, and similarly outstanding flavour, a
very high cocoa butter content (typical for an 85%, btw), and a decent
price. In fact, in a glaze, usually a lower sweetness is desirable so this
may be your chocolate of choice. However, I can't emphasize enough how
important getting your recipe is, and also what you're trying to achieve,
to make an accurate recommendation. At this point you've got a blind stab
in the dark.

There's also the possibility that your technique suffers from problems.
High-cocoa-butter chocolate is tricky to work with and if you do anything
even slightly wrong your results may be poor. A gloppy texture is
frequently the result of using a bad thermal profile when melting and
tempering.

--
Alex Rast

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