Love chocolate, bitter and mellow!
| recipe with french classic chocolate almonds
A small history of chocolate
We briefly introduced the small history of chocolate in a previous article. As the star ingredient in French pastry, the knowledge point of chocolate is too complex, and today I will talk about chocolate from another perspective.
As we mentioned earlier, chocolate comes from the fruit of the cacao tree, the cacao bean. Originally, the Spaniards ground the cocoa beans into powder and made them into a liquid cocoa drink. In 1642, chocolate was introduced to France as a medicine and eaten by Catholics. It wasn't until 1847, when cocoa butter was added to the chocolate, that there were solid chocolate chunks that we often eat today. Nowadays, every Valentine's Day, people in love send each other a box of chocolates to express their admiration for each other, but this custom has not been since ancient times.
Why is chocolate related to love?
As it is written in Food and Emotion: The Psychology Behind Appetite, "The chemical phenethylamine contained in chocolate is the same chemical that our brains secrete when they feel romantic love." This has also become the most powerful evidence that chocolate is scientifically related to love.
In fact, the reason why we generally believe that chocolate is related to love is because of the role of advertising and marketing in commercial society.
In 1868, Cadbury, a well-known company that made chocolate, launched the Valentine's Day dessert gift box - Fancy Boxes for the first time on Valentine's Day, which opened up the close connection between chocolate and love in contemporary society.
Subsequently, in 1907, the Hershey Chocolate Company introduced the "Kiss of Good Times", which is the shape of the good thing chocolate droplets we see today, as the introduction of the Valentine's Day chocolate gift box, which was very popular at the time.
And after that, the famous Telford Chocolate Company, also greatly marketed a wave, chocolate and love legend? Did everyone get to the English name "Dove" for Telford? Is the English word "Do you love me?" (Do you love me?) ) abbreviation.
It can be seen that the above familiar chocolate companies bundle chocolate with love for marketing, so that the public thinks that chocolate and love are related. Despite understanding the reasons for this, next year's Valentine's Day, you will still willingly send a box of beautifully packaged, silky taste, bitter and sweet chocolate to your loved ones, right?
People who often do baking may have heard some things about chocolate, such as chocolate competitions, Japanese raw chocolate, tempered chocolate, etc., and the following is a brief introduction.
Chocolate Masters
The "World Chocolate Masters" is one of the most authoritative competitions in the dessert industry, and it can be said that it is a dessert event. The World Masters of Chocolate is a competition of the highest standards in the world for professional chocolatiers. After the qualifiers of various countries and regions, the winners will participate in the finals of the "World Chocolate Masters" held in Paris, and compete with the most outstanding chocolatiers from more than 20 countries and regions in the world for the highest honor of "World Chocolatiers".
Clever, skillful? Chocolate is also raw and cooked
The raw and cooked chocolate areas are different in terms of ingredients, appearance and taste.
Raw chocolate is made from cocoa powder, cream and other ingredients without heating, while cooked chocolate is made by heating cocoa liquid blocks, etc.
Raw chocolate is mostly wrapped in small squares of cocoa powder, which is soft and silky to eat, while cooked chocolate is often in solid form, with a variety of appearances and a harder taste.
What is the warmed chocolate technique?
The core ingredients of chocolate are cocoa powder and cocoa butter. As we mentioned earlier, because of the addition of cocoa butter, chocolate has changed from a liquid state to today's solid lumps, so the temperature of chocolate comes down to the temperature of cocoa butter. After tempering, you can change the shape of the chocolate, making more flavors and various shapes.
Cocoa butter begins to soften at 28 °C, and at 33 °C, the solid composition quickly transforms into a liquid. It's easy to understand, we bring chocolates to our bags in the summer, and when we get home we find that they are chocolate, which is refrigerated in the fridge. Until the chocolate cools down again, solidifies into a liquid, and then takes it out to eat. It is precisely because of this physical property that the temperature of the human mouth is about 36 ° C to 37 ° C, and the chocolate can melt in the mouth.
There are many ways to cool and cool chocolate, such as water cooling and cooling, marble table cooling (tablage), seeding (seeding) and so on. Rimi Ishihara, a popular Japanese actor in China, participated in the "Lost Love Chocolate Worker", and the male protagonist once used the marble method to show the warm chocolate technique. Babies who like French pastry can look for this show (it's very good to watch). To become a great Pastry Chef, tempering chocolate is also one of the essential skills.
Because tempered chocolate is a special skill of French pastry, it requires the understanding of the principles while undergoing professional teacher guidance and repeated practice to master the technology, so we will not introduce it in detail here. For babies who are just getting started making desserts, delicious and easy to make is practical, so let me teach you to make a simple chocolate dessert.
Almond chocolate
Recipe: Chocolate to taste, almonds to taste, sugar in small amounts (or without addition), cocoa powder in small amounts.
Preparation steps:
1, Heat the sugar in a pot, the sugar color slightly yellow to turn off the heat. If you don't want to eat too much sugar, or if the chocolate chooses milk chocolate, etc., itself has enough sweetness, and the sugar at this step can be added.
2: Stir-fry the cooked large almonds in a sugar pan, coat them with sugarcoating and remove them, let cool and set aside.
3, heat the chocolate through water and melt it into a clever liquid.
4. Add the liquid chocolate to the almonds in batches and mix well with a spatula. Ensure that the liquid is evenly wrapped around the almond surface at each time. And gradually solidify before adding the next time.
5, sprinkle cocoa powder on the surface of the prepared chocolate, if you think the cocoa powder is too bitter, you can also not add.
6. Place the chocolate in a bottle and store it in a cool place. If the weather is too hot, you can also put it in the refrigerator for refrigeration, remember that the temperature should not be too high, and seal it well to avoid high temperature melting or moisture entering the bottle mouth, and the almonds are damp, affecting the taste.
Although the process of making this chocolate dessert is very simple, if you use the best ingredients and you love chocolate and almonds, this recipe is great!
In French dessert shops, almond chocolate is a very popular snack, because the cost of ingredients is high and the price is not cheap. Why don't you buy your own ingredients and make them at home!
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