Every one knows the finest chocolate is the kind that’s smooth, even and melts in your mouth. Culinary scientists at the University of Guelph now claim to have discovered a way to make the perfect chocolate that eliminates the time-consuming "tempering" procedure of continually heating and chilling chocolate.
The Dr. Alejandro Marangoni lead team discovered that by just adding a vital component of cocoa butter fat to melted chocolate helped to hold it together and give it an optimal structure, making the whole procedure much cheaper and less complex.
Their discovery has the potential to change the way the chocolate-making industry operates, world over.
It's not easy to make chocolate that has the perfect shine and gives you the ideal ‘snap’ noise when broken. The key to this is “Tempering”, the procedure in which chocolate manufacturers repeatedly heat and cool melted chocolate to condition the fatty acid crystals in the cocoa butter to be stable.
According to Marangoni, bad chocolate is easily recognisable, you'll know it right away as it's crumbly, grainy and soft. This is due to improper tempering.
He states that a good chocolatier can know it by eye, their knowledge of when the chocolate is ready allows them to make adjustments when it isn't.
However, in large-scale chocolate production, this is not possible
To induce the chocolate to crystallise, chocolate manufacturers commonly use "seeding" during the tempering process. The “seeding" process is basically the addition of tiny chunks or grated fragments of already-tempered chocolate that function as magnets to pull free fatty acid crystals into line during tempering.
Tempering units which are used by chocolate factories, aren't infallible, and manufacturers frequently discover huge variations between batches of cocoa butter.
Marangoni wanted to make the procedure easier by discovering an element that may assist in the formation of the proper crystal structure more quickly.
He evaluated numerous minor components naturally present in cocoa butter alongside research collaborator Dr. Saeed Ghazani, chemistry student Jay Chen, and master of science student- Jarvis Stobbs and chose a particular molecule, a saturated phospholipid, to initiate or "seed" the production of the correct cocoa butter crystals.
The team discovered that by adding the specific phospholipid to melted chocolate and then cooling it to 20 degrees celsius, not only accelerated crystallisation but also wholely eliminated the need for tempering. The resulting chocolate had a perfect microstructure, surface gloss and strength.
The researchers confirmed their discovery by obtaining detailed micrograph images of their chocolate’s interior microstructure which confirmed the successful effect of their ingredient on the chocolate’s structure. This was possible due to the synchrotron technology and bright light facility present at the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan.
On the topic of their advancements, Marangoni remarked "It's exciting that you could just add a phospholipid—a natural component already present in the cocoa butter—to achieve the required tempering.”
He believes that by doing away with complex tempering machines it could revolutionize the industry, make it easier for huge manufacturers to maintain standards and even allow small manufacturers to produce great chocolate without a heavy capital on machinery.
Dr. Alejandro Marangoni and research associate Dr. Saeed Ghazani testing chocolate in a
Department of Food Science lab.
Credit: University of Guelph
Reference:
Jay Chen et al, Tempering of cocoa butter and chocolate using minor lipidic components,
Nature Communications (2021)
Journal information: Nature Communications
Provided by University of Guelph.
Blog by Meher Biju
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