All that delicious chocolate from Sweet Memories Bakery in Apex, NC, calls for a dive into the luscious confection. Sweet Memories Bakery uses chocolate in so many ways including chocolate ganache, chocolate mousse, chocolate decorations, and chocolate to coat their buttercream cupcakes!
There are different kinds of chocolate with varying percentages of cocoa butter and cocoa solids including semi-sweet, milk, dark, bittersweet, and couverture. There are many brands of high quality chocolate: Callebaut, Valrhona, Schokinag, etc. According to Pastry Chef Jacques Torres, good quality chocolate to use at home that is easily available is Dove Dark Chocolate.
Chocolate ganache is basically chopped chocolate melted with hot, heavy cream. The thickness or firmness of the ganache depends on the ratio of chocolate to heavy cream. Some recipes add butter and sugar. Ganache may be whipped to varying degrees of stiffness (soft to firm peaks), or it may be poured as a filling or a glaze. It is usually used hot, warm, or at room temperature.
Chocolate mousse calls for the heavy cream to be chilled and whipped. Some of the whipped cream is completely mixed with melted chocolate. In several steps, egg whites are whipped to stiff peaks then folded (gently combined) with the cream and chocolate. The mousse is chilled till needed.
Chocolate can also be tempered to make chocolate decorations or used as a coating for cookies, candies, etc. Tempering is a process by which the chocolate is heated, cooled, and finally reheated such that it can be used for coating purposes. Tempering will give the final coated product a beautiful shine and an audible snap.
The best chocolate to use for coating purposes is couverture chocolate. This chocolate must have at least 32-39% cocoa butter, while the combined cocoa butter and cocoa solids must be at least 54%. When a package of chocolate indicates, for example, 70% cocoa, it means that 70% of the chocolate product is made up of the combined cocoa butter and cocoa solids.
There are varying methods and temperature ranges by which chocolate (depending on what kind) is tempered. Once you find a brand of chocolate and a method of tempering that works for you, stick with it. The following video uses one pound of Dove Dark Chocolate, heated to 118 degrees, seeded to cool to 80 degrees then reheated to 87 degrees. The initial heating in the microwave is for 30 seconds only, then stirred. Subsequent bouts of reheating are at 10 second intervals till the necessary temperature is reached.
Chocolate in the Triangle: Blue Moon Bakery La Farm Bakery
REFERENCE
Corriher, Shirley O. (2008). BakeWise. New York: Scribner.
Desaulniers, Marcel. (1992). Death by Chocolate. New York: Rizzoli.
Torres, Jacques. (1998). Dessert Circus. New York: William Morrow and company, Inc.
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 19 January 2010. Wikimedia Foundation. 07 March 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couverture_chocolate
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