All About Chocolate - Part 2

Yesterday I wrote all about where chocolate comes from, how it is made and the differences between bittersweet chocolate and semi sweet chocolate. I also look at dark chocolate, white chocolate and ask, "Does chocolate really taste sweet?" - See All About Chocolate - Part 1

Chocolaty Examples

Here are two brownie recipes. The first uses 8 oz. of unsweetened chocolate. Look at all of the sugar that is used to balance that! The second calls for semisweet chocolate. The difference between the two recipes is pretty clear.

Brownies made with unsweetened chocolate (100% chocolate)

8- 1 ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate
1 cup butter
5 eggs
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt

Brownies made with semisweet chocolate

8 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour

Note that, even though both recipes call for 8 ounces of chocolate, there is a full 2 1/4 cup reduction in sugar in the recipe that calls for semisweet chocolate! The semisweet recipe also halves the butter and reduces the number of eggs. This is most likely because there is more cocoa butter in the unsweetened chocolate than there is in the semi-sweet chocolate.

Since the semisweet chocolate also contains less chocolate (maybe as much as 65% less, depending on the semisweet chocolate used), not as many eggs are needed to balance out the drying effect of the cocoa solids contained in the chocolate.

How To Make These Brownies

To make either version of the brownies, melt together the chocolate and butter. Stir until smooth and then cool. Whisk in the sugar by hand, followed by the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla and then the flour. You can add toasted nuts as well, if you’d like. Pour into a greased and lined pan (8” x 8” for thicker brownies and 9”x 13” for thinner brownies) and bake at 325F until done.

To Temper or Not to Temper

There is no need to temper chocolate that is going to be used in a recipe. Melting it is sufficient. The goal of tempering is to get the cocoa butter to crystallize in its most stable form, and, since it melts at body temperature anyway, tempering would be a waste of time in a batter that will go in the oven at temperatures well in excess of 98F!

The time to temper is when you want the chocolate to stand on its own—either as a coating for truffles or molded candies or for decoration. Tempering is not difficult, but it can be a little fussy. There are many excellent resources on the web that can walk you through the process.

If you want to make candy but do not want to go through the trouble of tempering the chocolate, you can use chocolate coatings. These can be found in craft stores or grocery stores. In my opinion, these products do not taste very good, partly because of the substitution of other fats for cocoa butter.

You can make your own, good tasting coating chocolate using this simple formula: chocolate and a neutral oil together in a 10 to 1 ratio. So, for ten ounces of chocolate, you’ll need 1 ounce of vegetable oil. For 5 ounces, you’ll need ½ ounce (1 tablespoon). The addition of the vegetable fat will allow the chocolate to firm up and maintain a sheen without needing to be tempered.