Tag Archives: cacao

Remy and the Chocolate Chip

June 18, 2020 by

For as long as chef Lisa Vega has been with Dandelion Chocolate, Maybe The Very Best Chocolate Chip Cookie has been part of our DNA. For years, our chocolate chips were made in-house by the kitchen team, who hand-piped over 50 pounds of tempered discs a week. That is, until recently, when the Large Chip was born.

To learn the “making of” story we spoke with Remy Labesque, a talented industrial designer and good friend of ours who collaborated with Chef Lisa and the production team to make the perfect chocolate chip. Remy met Todd when he attended a Chocolate 101 class some years ago and so began a lasting friendship. Remy was working at Frog Design at the time (he’s now at Tesla) and he jumped at the opportunity to re-design the chocolate chip.

When the large chip was launched in May, Remy walked us through his creative process which led to the birth of these geometric beauties.

“The chip project began about three years ago. If my memory serves me, it was driven in large part by pastry chef Lisa Vega, who wanted something specifically tailored for her recipes. There are two chip designs: large and small (the large was released first, and the small will be at a later date). Their mass (3.5 grams and 0.8 grams, respectively), was driven by Lisa, and the prototypes were tested along the way in her recipes as part of the R&D process. Another consideration was that we also needed something that could be enjoyed as a chocolate-eating experience completely by itself — that’s where our unique shape comes into play.

“The shape of a typical store-bought chocolate chip is an arbitrary result of the industrial manufacturing process used to make it. As you might expect, a drop of molten chocolate is deposited onto a flat surface and left to cool. Chocolate chip taste varies widely by brand, but the shape of the chips does not.

“The shape of our chip is faceted: The edges of a Dandelion Chocolate chip taper to thin-as-we could-make-’em without compromising structure. This is because the thermal mass of a thin piece of chocolate melts more quickly on the palate. So when you put a Dandelion chip on your tongue, the thin, chiseled edges warm-to-melt nearly instantly. The 3D shape, while simple, we believe is also novel. And this is noteworthy because the world of industrial design is running out of simple forms that haven’t been claimed for something already. Beyond that we’re proud to have optimized the chocolate chip eating experience as a result of rethinking the humble shape itself.”

While the chip was created for baking, many of us at Dandelion Chocolate have reached for them to nibble because the mouthfeel is different from our bars; but make no mistake, there is nothing like the taste when these chips are baked in a gigantic chocolate chip cookie.

The chips are being released by origin, and the first two are especially suited to baking and confections:
Costa Esmeraldas from Ecuador, 70%, 2018 Harvest, with notes of chocolate buttercream frosting and banana; and Hacienda Azul from Costa Rica, 70%, 2019 Harvest, with notes of chocolate almond biscotti and buttery caramel.

We want to thank Remy for bringing his know-how and love of chocolate to the project. It’s great to finally to be able to share his story with you.

Getting good grades for Cacao

July 14, 2017 by

I remember talking to Carla Martin at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in 2015 about her creation of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute (FCCI).  Part of her goal for FCCI was to create a standard (similar to specialty coffee cupping) which could be used across the cacao and chocolate industry to consistently and accurately communicate about flavor.  This is something I’d been wanting for a very long time as it’s quite hard for cacao producers and chocolate makers to speak the same language when it comes to the organoleptic evaluation of cacao. Cacao producers tend to taste fermented and dried beans, chocolate makers tend to taste liquor; the flavors in each often being very different.  This is where the FCCI protocol comes in – it is a step beyond tasting a bean and a step before tasting liquor and can be done easily, cheaply, repeatably, and quickly enough that it can be useful for all parties.  Full information on the FCCI protocol can be found on the FCCI website.

FCCI Field Kit (and beans and chocolate)

I’m going to talk about my nascent use of this protocol for cacao evaluation, but before I do, I want to be clear that at this point I’m not certain this will solve all our sensory evaluation challenges.  As I’ve used it, I think where this protocol shines is in comparisons rather than absolutes.  In fairness the protocol was designed to be used in the absolute and maybe as I use it more, I’ll change my mind :).  The great thing about this protocol is even without a lot of training, if you are trying to understand variations in day lots while producing cacao, this is great. If you are a chocolate maker trying to understand variations in harvest from the year before, this will work well. If you are visiting a new cacao producer and want to get a sense of the beans, this is just great!  While I think this protocol does a good job of helping understand positive traits and defects in beans, I’m not certain it can be used on its own to determine if beans will make great chocolate (as opposed to just good chocolate). Ed Seguine’s insight about the FCCI protocol is that he felt it would help you understand if you want to turn beans into liquor, which is a much more arduous process. Clearly, this protocol doesn’t mean people magically understand how to differentiate all the various attributes of cacao, that takes time and lots of tasting (and FCCI is working toward making this sort of training available to all). But, even if you just want to start off by understanding how today’s beans compare to last week’s beans, it’s useful.

I also should note that it seems the best way to give feedback on cacao is breaking it up into:

  1. Physical quality: this is an assessment of the quantity of rocks, flats, broken beans, etc
  2. Sensory analysis: this is the goal of the FCCI cacao grading – understanding, as well as providing feedback on, the organoleptic qualities of the beans. This should be objective and, if everyone is well trained and calibrated, it should be consistent across assessments
  3. Hedonic preference: this is subjective and comes down to whether you like the beans and/or think they could work well for you as a buyer

My last caveat is what I am describing here is what I might refer to as the FCCI cacao grading field protocol.  The more formal lab protocol was linked above.  The formal protocol calls for a different set of tools but it was a set of tools I couldn’t fit into my standard traveling gear.  So, I talked to Carla and came up with a smaller set of gear that I’d be willing to carry all the time.  The FCCI protocol also has a paper form.  I made an offline-capable app.  

Breaking up beans in the DR

The field protocol variant I’ve been using has the following steps:

– Pull 100g of beans using a scale and evaluate external characteristics.  I will sometimes skip this step for things like day lots which don’t change much.

– Perform a cut test on 50 beans and record the results.  Again, if I am just trying to get the flavor, I sometimes skip this.

– Pull a set of 20 beans at random, break up, and peel all 20 beans. If they’re tough to crack, try with a nutcracker.  This is important, as you need to use all the beans, not just the ones that are easy to peel, because the tough ones often impact the flavor significantly.

– Put the broken beans (aka unroasted nibs) into your grinder

– Sing a little song while grinding up the beans until they are all ground up!

– Mix the resulting powder to homogenize.  This is one of the best aspects of this protocol, tasting 3 or 4 beans doesn’t give you a sense of a whole lot, creating a powder both releases aromatics but also allows you to taste a larger sample size consistently.

– Evaluate aromatics by reading each criterion on the scoring sheet, smelling the sample, and giving a score.  It’s a lot easier to smell one time for each criterion than trying to remember the sensation of them all.

Final powder to sample

– Evaluate the flavors by taking a 1/8 teaspoon sample of the powder and putting it into your mouth.  While smelling beans multiple times is easy, tasting that many times is harder so I suggest tasting the sample and then scoring a quickly as possible while it is fresh in your mind.  Feel free to spit it out!

There are times I just do aroma and taste and other times I do a full evaluation.  I don’t tend to do a cut test but others might like to.  I am new to this, I only started using this methodology on a recent trip to the Solomon Islands (sponsored by PHAMA who is doing some great work in the Pacific islands with cacao).  What I found was it gave me a good, consistent way to evaluate someone’s cacao.  It was thorough enough that you felt comfortable with the result and didn’t take months to give initial thoughts on beans. It also gave me a good opportunity to sit with producers for a few minutes touching and tasting their beans, almost like a little ritual so that they knew I was taking the evaluation seriously rather than tasting 3 beans from a bag and saying “hmmm.”  It’s hard to get to know people in short visits and any opportunity to build rapport is worth exploring.

This protocol helped me understand which beans seemed good enough to get a sample and process into chocolate.  Narrowing which beans to get for sampling is helpful as one of the worst things a chocolate maker can do is get a sample and not give feedback.  Samples take a lot of time and energy for producers to pull together and ship.  If you don’t want to give feedback, don’t get a sample.  I partially say this as I am guilty of it as well. There have been times we’ve gotten busy, haven’t processed a sample and each time I know I have wronged the producer who sent us the sample, I should’ve just not asked for one at that point in time.  

Sample page of GoCanvas app for Field Evals

The app I made saves a GPS point, photos, and scores which help me keep track of samples.  The app also creates a PDF (such as Solomons-Waisu-Evaluation) which is helpful to give back to the people you are working with. Carla and FCCI are working to make a free, standardized app for evaluation.  Until that point I will happily share the app I made, if you are interested, just email me at gregd@dandelionchocolate.com for more information!

It feels to me like this is a great step in the evolution of cacao sensory evaluation. I’m sure there is more to come but, if you are a cacao producer looking for a consistent way to evaluate lots or a chocolate maker looking for a lightweight evaluation method, give it a try!  This is a living protocol and FCCI is looking for any feedback users have to iterate on it and make it more useful, feel free to drop them a line at contact@chocolateinstitute.org with any thoughts you might have. If you have any questions for me about this I am happy to answer them, feel free to email or drop by our shop if you are in the SF bay area!

History of Chocolate

April 5, 2017 by

About a month ago, a couple members of our education team, Kelsey and Cynthia, were asked to give a lecture on the History of Chocolate to an undergraduate history class at the University of California-Davis. They used the opportunity to create an outline for our newest class at Dandelion Chocolate: An Edible History of Chocolate. Here’s a look into how it went, what they learned, and what you can look forward to in our upcoming class!

When Cynthia and I were asked to give a lecture on the History of Chocolate, we thought, “Easy! we’ll just talk about what we do every day…to a bunch of history students… who probably know more about the history of the Americas than we do… and, wait, did you just say 300 of them? Oh. Well, here comes the crippling stage fright. What did we get ourselves into?”

I remember the lump in my throat as I read the email from Professor Andres Resendez, who has spent his entire academic career studying and writing multiple books all about the early exploration and colonization of Central and South America, imagining what we could possibly tell him (and a lecture hall full of students) about cacao, or about how colonialism introduced chocolate to the global trade system, beginning thousands of years ago. And, history, it’s so…old. How could we know enough to confidently explain it to an expert historian? We know chocolate, we’re neck deep in it every day. But talking about the history of chocolate to a room full of history students felt, well, intimidating.

I peeked over my computer at Cynthia. She too had an apprehensive look on her face after opening the last correspondence with Dr. Resendez. But it only took her all of 30 seconds to perk up and smile, as she always does, with a glow of confidence, “Oh! We’ve got this. I mean why not?” Cynthia has a way of boosting my confidence when it comes to these things, reminding me that in our little chocolate world over here we can sometimes forget just how much we’ve already learned about chocolate and where it comes from. I later told her she reminded me of Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus, what with her “Take chances, make mistakes and get messy!” attitude.

So there we had it, a month to pull together the curriculum and make a nerdy, but totally cool and engaging presentation. Happily for us, we’ve been dreaming about developing a full class about the history of chocolate for our customers for awhile now, and this was an excellent opportunity to pull that together. We spent the month compiling and formatting information, listening to podcasts, reading articles, looking at all kinds of books on Amazon. Finally, we had a week to pull together the presentation when Cynthia pulled me aside at our Valencia Street Factory and says, “I realized, I know way more than I thought I did and I’m pretty sure you do too. I’m really excited. We’ve totally got this, Kelsey.”

And that was all I needed to hear to be right there with her. She was right. I think we sometimes forget that no one knows it all. We don’t. Historians don’t. Other chocolate makers (probably) don’t. New discoveries are continually being made by scientists, uncovering new evidence extending what we know about the history of chocolate. And then there are the farmers, traders and makers of chocolate, who are regularly discovering new things about the industry. We’re both adding what we know to both ends of the story, the past and the present. You can be an expert and still not know everything; you can be relatively new to it and still know a lot. And that feels like the magic of chocolate; there is always something new to learn.

As P-day approached, we dove into the deep end. We reviewed the history of the Olmec, the Maya and the Aztec.; how cacao beans were at one point a currency, which would set the stage for the future of its influence over the rest of the world. We read stories of European royalty bestowing gifts of chocolate in marriage, a symbol of international alliances. We dove into stories about how the Quaker influence shows up in the modern day labor dynamics in the Ivory Coast. We noticed patterns, like the way different cultures throughout history had some spiritual or romantic association with chocolate, and many of them recognized some aphrodisiac property in theobromine. We even learned how chocolate was adopted by the masses in the United States through WWII. Cynthia pulled together 60+ slides, dotted with lore of Emperor Montezuma and his drinking obsession, and stories of the secret Monks of Spain and Hershey bars. And I got to make it pretty with silly animations and words. We worked until 10pm the night before, giddy with fun facts (which could have also had to do with the entire Marou bar I ate while working).    

We walked into the classroom, took a deep breath, introduced ourselves and proceeded to tell a room full of 20 year olds what we knew. And guess what? We totally killed it.

And even better, you can experience the whole thing in our upcoming Edible History of Chocolate class! The first one will be April 20th, from 7-9pm. Stay tuned for more info on how to sign up and future dates.

EDUCATION STATION: Ground Chocolate

March 25, 2017 by

You’re curious, so we find answers. Our education team fields many questions from our guests in classes, so we’ve decided to launch a brand new series in which we tackle some of the questions we get most often. We call it The Education Station, and it’s where you’ll find the answers to just about everything from what cocoa beans are made of to why cocoa powder and ground chocolate are not the same. Speaking of…

What IS this?? Keep reading to find out.

It’s A Grind!

Sometimes people ask us how we make our hot chocolate so, well, chocolatey. Do we pour chocolate from our melangers (the machine that grinds, conches, and mixes cocoa beans and sugar to turn them into chocolate) straight into their cups?  

Sadly, if we poured chocolate from a melanger into your cup it would solidify pretty quickly and be too thick to drink. So how then, do you make a thick, rich hot chocolate?

The answer is that we make a rich base with ground chocolate. But what, might you ask, is ground chocolate? Is it like cocoa powder? Most hot chocolate recipes are based on cocoa powder, which is in its own way a kind of ground chocolate so that would be a good guess, but they are very, very different.

Since this often seems to be a confusing subject, I’ve taken the opportunity to demonstrate some of the differences between the two.

 

What is cocoa powder?

Many people assume that cocoa powder is simply ground up cocoa nibs. It’s a good guess, but the thing is, cocoa nibs liquify when you grind them. Cocoa nibs are made up of approximately 50% fat, or cocoa butter, and when the heat from the friction inherent in grinding the cocoa nibs meets that cocoa butter in the nibs, it melts. Thus, when you grind up cocoa nibs you end up with more of a crunchy peanut butter-like paste rather than a powder. (Don’t trust me, try it! Throw some nibs in a blender, food processor, or between a mortar and pestle.)

So if not ground nibs, then what is cocoa powder? I’ll give you a clue: cocoa powder comes from a part of the cocoa nib. Cocoa nibs are composed of two things (if we’re being relatively simplistic): cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Now, it’s worth saying here that there are no definition of “cocoa solid” that is universally agreed upon. Technically, there are non-fat cocoa solids (the brown, flavorful stuff in a cocoa nib) and fatty cocoa solids (usually called cocoa butter). For simplicity, we call the brown flavorful component the “cocoa solids,” and the fat “cocoa butter.” So, we’ll roll with that for now. 

Back to our programming: cocoa powder comes from the solids. But how do you separate the two? Well, it takes some heat and a lot of pressure to press most of the cocoa butter out of the cocoa nibs. To make cocoa powder, the remaining solid parts of the nibs are ground up. Since most of the cocoa butter was pressed out, cocoa solids won’t liquify when you grind them up, instead becoming a dry powder. In the video below, I’m pressing the cocoa butter out of our nibs using a seed oil extractor, and the butter that comes out is still brown because it’s not a perfect pressing. But, you get the idea.

An interesting note: Sometimes cocoa powder is chemically treated with an alkali solution to make it taste less acidic and more “chocolate-y.” These will be labeled “Dutch-processed” or “alkalized.” For more on Dutch-processed versus natural cocoa powder check out David Lebovitz’s informative blog on the subject.  

 

So, what is ground chocolate?  

In short, ground chocolate is just what it sounds like: chocolate ground into a powder. Most of the ground chocolate we make at Dandelion is made out of 70% dark chocolate (ingredients: 70% cocoa nibs and 30% sugar, by weight). So to recap, cocoa powder is basically cocoa solids (with a tiny bit of fat that couldn’t be pressed out), and ground chocolate is three things: sugar, and cocoa solids and cocoa butter (the two components of nibs). 

We recently got a few new machines to help us make ground chocolate from untempered blocks of chocolate. You have to be careful not to heat the blocks too much or grind them for too long because, of course, chocolate melts. To grind the blocks, we used to use an industrial food processor, but we’ve recently upgraded to a fancy shmancy granulator that is much quieter, faster, and more consistent. 

Those were cool photos, but I’m still a little confused about how cocoa powder and ground chocolate are different….

Okay – well let’s look at them in the real world. To make hot chocolate we need some heat, right?

What happens if we gently heat cocoa powder and ground chocolate on a double boiler?

Ground chocolate melts over heat

Cocoa powder….does not.

Cocoa powder has between 11% and 22% fat (because it’s nearly impossible to press all the cocoa butter out) and ground chocolate has more like 35% fat, so they behave differently when heated. Heat cocoa powder, and virtually nothing will happen. It balls up a little, but can easily be whisked back to its starting texture. On the other hand, the ground chocolate, a fattier substance with some sugar in it, will melt fast. To return it to its starting state, we’d have to cool it and toss it in a food processor. 

 

Okay, but we still haven’t made hot chocolate…

Another way of illustrating the difference between these too is by looking at what happens when we make hot chocolate with them by adding warmed milk to each. Behold:

When 3 oz of steamed almond milk were added to 2 tablespoons cocoa powder or 2 tablespoons ground chocolate, the cocoa powder rose to the top of the container. Meanwhile, the ground chocolate started to melt.

When stirred, the milk and powders mixed into each other in a similar manner, but the hot chocolate made from ground chocolate was slightly thicker. The hot chocolate made from pure cocoa powder was more bitter since it had no added sugar and a strong chocolate flavor, but it was less creamy and rich and noticeably thinner. The hot chocolate made from the ground chocolate was thicker and clung to the whisk a little more.

Here at the factory, without a 50-tonne hydraulic cocoa butter press, we don’t have or make cocoa powder, and so we’re only left with what we do make: chocolate. This is a fundamental difference between our pastry kitchen and most pastry kitchens, where cocoa powder is a baking staple. Our Executive Pastry Chef, Lisa Vega, and her team are constantly improvising ways to work with chocolate instead of cocoa powder to make cakes, cookies, custards, and more. Single origin ground chocolate brings a few more challenges to the table—the fat level varies from origin to origin—and you can’t just swap ground chocolate in for cocoa powder because, as you’ve seen, they are quite different.

But lucky for me, I get to savor the rich chocolatey hot chocolate from our pastry team every day. Later this year, you’ll get a full look inside our kitchen and all of its secrets as part of the book we’ve been writing for the last two years, coming out in late fall. But for now, we’ll include a recipe for our hot chocolate below. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go order myself another cup. And stay tuned for our next installment of Education Station, where we’ll explore some more chocolate mysteries. Next stop: Is White Chocolate, Chocolate?

“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground [chocolate].” – Theodore Roosevelt

Our house hot chocolate is one of the simplest, most delicious ways to enjoy chocolate as a drink. We recommend it with marshmallows or nibby whipped cream, both of which you’ll find in our book—a guide to making chocolate at home, sourcing beans, and making pastries with single origin chocolate—coming out later this year!

Our House Hot Chocolate

2½ cups / 567 grams / 20 ounces nonfat milk

1 tablespoon packed / 10 grams light brown sugar

1½ cups / 227 grams / 8 ounces 70% chocolate, chopped

 

  1. Combine 1 cup (225 grams / 8 ounces) of milk and the brown sugar in a large heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water.
  1. Add the chocolate to the hot milk and whisk to combine, keeping the bowl over the pot to continue . Whisk the mixture for an additional 3 minutes, until shiny and emulsified. This mix——may seem quite thick at this point.
  1. Whisk in the rest of the milk, adding it in a slow stream, and heat for another 4 to 5 minutes, whisking occasionally, until hot.
  1. Remove the bowl from the pot of water, pour the hot chocolate into mugs, and serve immediately.