36Sugar work and chocolate

Sugar work means boiling a syrup of sugar and liquid to an exact temperature, then handling it in a set way so it sets as the candy you want. The finished sweet is either amorphous, with no crystals, or crystalline, with very fine ones. A thermometer and a bowl of cold water tell you when the syrup is ready.

Chocolate starts much further back, as a cocoa bean. A factory cleans, roasts and grinds the beans, and what comes out becomes four products.

• cocoa powder
• baking chocolate
• eating chocolate
• couverture, the chocolate professionals use for coating and molding

36.1 Candies: amorphous and crystalline

Why sugar forms crystals, and what stops it, is explained earlier. Here the question is how to make each kind of candy. see chapter 7: Sugar

Two families

• peanut brittle
• caramels
• hard candy
• English toffee
• butterscotch

Crystalline candies keep crystals, but tiny ones, so the candy feels smooth. These belong here:

• chocolate fudge
• white fudge
• penuche
• pralines

Whether the crystals stay small or grow large decides if the candy is smooth or grainy.

Common interfering agents in candy include:

• butter
• corn syrup
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• milk
• brown sugar
• half-and-half

Check the thermometer first

A candy thermometer that reads wrong will ruin a batch, so test it before you start. see chapter 3: Thermometers

• Stand the stem in boiling water, 2.5 inches deep, for 2 minutes.
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• It should read 100°C (212°F).
• If it reads higher or lower, add or take away that difference from every reading you make that day.
• A thermometer that is off by more than 1°C (3°F) should not be used at all.

The cold water test

The second check needs no tool. Drop a little hot syrup into cold water and watch what it does. Each stage has a name:

Use both checks together: read the thermometer, and confirm with the water.

Amorphous candies and their end points

Each amorphous candy has its own end point, the temperature at which it comes off the heat:

Some steps in these recipes need care:

• Butter the pan or sheet first. Every one of these candies is poured out the moment it is done, onto a buttered sheet or into a buttered pan. There is no time to get one ready afterwards.
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• Caramels can scorch. Bring them to the boil over low heat while you stir, add the rest of the half-and-half slowly, and stir again near the end. Scald the half-and-half first by heating it to 92°C for 1 minute. Mark the squares while the caramel is cooling, and cut it once it is cold.
• Brittle foams. Once the peanut syrup reaches hard crack, stir in the butter and baking soda only until they are mixed. The candy will bubble up. Pour it out, lift the edges with a spatula so it does not stick, and pull it thin while it is still warm. Break it into pieces when cool.
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• Toffee gets its chocolate last. Pour the toffee out, let it go cold, then spread chocolate melted over a double boiler on top. Break it up once the chocolate has set.
• Hard candy is flavored off the heat. At 144°C (290°F), stir in the coloring and a few drops of an oil flavoring such as anise, cinnamon or wintergreen, then pour.

Crystalline candies: cool first, then beat

Fudge and its cousins share one method, and its order matters.

• Stir the sugar and milk over the heat only until the sugar has dissolved.
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• Boil the syrup, with no lid, over medium heat to the soft ball stage.
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• Take the pan off the heat and drop in the butter. Leave it alone; do not stir.
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• Let it cool, still untouched, until it is lukewarm. For chocolate fudge that is 43°C.
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• Add the vanilla and beat hard. Stop when the candy has thickened and the shine starts to fade.
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• Pour it into a buttered 6-inch square pan, score it into squares, and cut when firm.
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The end points are close together, all at soft ball:

Pralines break the pattern at the end. Cool them undisturbed to 65°C, stir in the pecans, and beat for about 3 minutes, only until the candy begins to thicken. It should still be shiny. Spoon it onto waxed paper.

What good candy looks like

A good crystalline candy meets several marks.

• Color: what you expect for its kind.
• Surface: a satin sheen on top.
• Texture: fudge and penuche are very fine and evenly smooth; pralines are meant to be grainy.
• Cut: each one holds a clean edge.
• Feel: soft but not sticky at room temperature.
• Flavor: sweet and well blended.

Set some of every batch aside and look at it again later. Storage changes candy, so judge each one both fresh and after it has been kept.

36.2 Fondant

Fondant is a crystalline candy too, made the same way as fudge but with nothing in it except sugar, water and, sometimes, one interfering agent. Changing that one agent shows how each affects the crystals.

Five versions

• sugar and water alone, with no interfering agent
• with 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar added
• with 1 tbsp. light corn syrup added
• with half the white sugar swapped for brown sugar
• with 1 tbsp. butter added

The method

• Put everything in a heavy saucepan and stir over the heat until the sugar dissolves.
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• Keep cooking over medium heat until it boils.
• Clean the inside walls of the pan. Wrap clean, damp cheesecloth around a fork and wipe them down, or put the lid on and let the syrup boil for 2 or 3 minutes. see chapter 7: Sugar
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• Boil on to the soft ball stage, 114°C (237°F). Stir only if the syrup is about to scorch. Check with the thermometer and with the cold water test.
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• Pour about two thirds of the syrup onto a buttered plate straight away. Do not scrape the pan.
• Leave it alone until it cools to lukewarm, 40°C (104°F).
• Beat it hard so that it crystallizes again, then knead it with your hands until it is smooth, soft and easy to shape.

Ripening

Fondant changes after it is made. Wrap half of the kneaded fondant in waxed paper, label it, and store it until the next session so you can see how it ripens. Keep the leftover third of the syrup covered in a labeled cup as well. Some of it will crystallize on its own, and you can compare the size of those crystals on the day you made it and the day you look again.

A good fondant

Good fondant meets several marks.

• white, except for the butter and brown sugar versions
• a smooth surface
• moist and easy to bend without being sticky
• holds a cut edge
• feels very smooth in the mouth
• a flavor that matches the recipe

36.3 From cocoa bean to chocolate

In the factory

Chocolate making in North America began in Massachusetts in 1765.

The beans go through these steps:

• Cleaning. Magnets pull out bits of metal, and sand, dust and other dirt are taken away.
• Roasting. Some of the bean's starch turns into dextrins, which makes the flavor better.
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• Grinding. The beans are cracked and ground so finely that they become a liquid. This liquid is called chocolate liquor.
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• Pressing. Hydraulic presses squeeze out cocoa butter. The fat falls from 55% to about 10% to 24%, or lower, and what is left is a solid block called press cake.
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• Making cocoa. The press cake is broken up, ground to powder, cooled and sifted. That is cocoa powder. Bakeries mostly use cocoa with a low fat content.
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• Conching. Chocolate gets one more refining step, which makes it smoother. It is kept at 55–65°C (131–149°F) while it runs. Sugar and protein join to form amino sugars, and the paste gives off acids and moisture.
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The kinds of chocolate

Real chocolate contains cocoa butter. The main kinds, from the most cocoa liquor to the least, are:

• unsweetened
• dark
• milk
• white

Inside the dark family, the names follow sugar:

• Sweet chocolate has the most sugar, sometimes nearly as much as the liquor and butter together, in the range of 45% to 55%.
• Semi-sweet has less sugar than sweet and is often used in cooking. "Dark" usually means semi-sweet.
• Bittersweet has less sugar and more liquor again. "Extra dark" usually means bittersweet. In baking, semi-sweet and bittersweet can often stand in for each other, and both are sometimes sold as couverture.

The higher the cocoa percentage, the less sweet the chocolate. For fillings, cooks often choose chocolates with more flavor, from 60% to 99% cocoa.

What the label means

Cocoa and chocolate have legal definitions, set out in food regulations and enforced by food inspectors.

• Cocoa butter must be the only fat. Chocolate may not contain vegetable fats or oils.
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• Chocolate must contain chocolate liquor.
• Only sweeteners on the approved list are allowed. Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame potassium, and sugar alcohols such as sorbitol and maltitol, are not.
• Milk and milk ingredients, emulsifiers, and flavors such as vanilla are allowed.
• A product made with a forbidden ingredient cannot be sold as chocolate. It needs a name such as "candy".
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• Lecithin, the most common emulsifier, may make up no more than 1% of chocolate. Most of it comes from soy, both GMO and non-GMO, so read the package if the source matters to you. see chapter 7: Chocolate that flows

Cocoa

Cocoa powder comes in two styles, natural-process and Dutch-process. They are treated differently, and they differ in how well they mix into liquid, in color and in flavor.

In most recipes, 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate can be replaced with 3 tablespoons of cocoa plus 1 tablespoon of fat.

Hot chocolate and cocoa

Both drinks are made the same way.

• Heat the chocolate or cocoa with sugar, a pinch of salt and a little water, stirring.
• Let it boil gently for 2 minutes.
• Add the milk and bring it up to serving heat.
• Just before you serve it, whip it with a rotary beater until froth covers the top.

A cup of cocoa takes five ingredients.

• 1 tbsp. cocoa
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• a dash of salt
• ¼ cup water
• ¾ cup milk

After the first boil, you can finish heating it over a double boiler, which takes 10 to 15 minutes.

A good cup meets several marks.

• evenly blended
• no skin on top and nothing settled at the bottom
• a clear taste of chocolate
• a color and flavor that suit the kind of cocoa used
• body, about as thick as thin cream

36.4 Couverture and tempering

What couverture is

Top quality chocolate usually goes by the name couverture. Couverture carries extra cocoa butter. Dark, milk and white chocolate can each be made as couverture.

Professionals use it for dipping, coating, molding and garnishing. When it is tempered well, the extra cocoa butter gives it more shine, a firmer snap when you break it, and a mellow, creamy flavor.

Under European Union rules, a chocolate labeled couverture must contain:

• at least 35% total dry cocoa solids
• within that, at least 31% cocoa butter
• and at least 2.5% dry cocoa solids that are not fat

Reading the percentage

The percentage printed on a bar mixes cocoa butter and cocoa liquor into one number. It does not tell you how much of each is in it. To find out, look at the nutrition label or ask the maker.

When everything else is equal, the bar with more fat has more cocoa butter. That means more flavor and a richer feel in the mouth. It usually costs more too, because cocoa butter is worth more than cocoa liquor.

Two bars from different makers can show the same percentage and still be quite different, in fat, in liquor and in taste. Swapping one for the other can spoil a recipe. Know what is in the chocolate before you choose it.

Tempering

Tempering is what makes couverture shine and snap. What it does to the crystals in cocoa butter, and what badly tempered chocolate looks like, is covered earlier. see chapter 7: Fats and chocolate

An infrared thermometer, which reads only the surface, is useful for tempering. see chapter 3: Thermometers