Page 32 - Chocolate Cake Doctor

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volatile. The strong, irresistible smell that snaps, smells chocolaty, and melts
chocolate gives off while baking is your smoothly in your mouth. It can be eaten
clue that flavors are being baked away. Any out of hand, chopped and melted into
subtle nuances in that precious Euro pean frostings, or grated into cake batter for
chocolate that you paid so dearly for will extra chocolate flavor.
be but history when it is blasted in a 350°F • Couverture chocolate: Contains
oven. Shop at your local supermarket for more cocoa butter than semisweet, so it
all the chocolate you’ll need in this book. melts better. It is used primarily in candy
Buy real chocolate. There is choco- making and is not called for in this book.
late, and there is the imitation stuff that • Milk chocolate: Contains more
doesn’t contain cocoa butter. Look for real sugar than semisweet, and of course milk
chocolate, which isn’t hard to find on your is added. It is delicious eaten out of hand,
supermarket shelf. and will melt and fold into frostings.
Milk chocolate chips can be added to cake
and cookie batters. Be careful when melt-
The basics
ing milk chocolate; it doesn’t take as long
• Unsweetened chocolate: Also known as semisweet. Because of the extra sugar
as bitter or baking chocolate. It contains added, you cannot substitute milk choco-
cocoa particles, ground very fine and late for semisweet chocolate.
smooth, an emulsifier, pure or artificial • White chocolate: For something
vanilla, but no sugar. It is sold most often so simple in flavor, this is a mighty com -
in 1-ounce squares in an 8-ounce box, plicated confection. It is made from the
but you can also buy it melted in a conve- cocoa butter pressed from the cacao
nient plastic pouch. bean, with sugar, milk solids, vanilla,
• Semisweet or bittersweet choco- and leci thin added. Because it contains
late: Sugar is added to unsweetened no chocolate liquor, its flavor comes from
chocolate, and the amount of sugar varies the cocoa butter. And that is why the
with the manufacturer. The names of this Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
l
choco ate will vary, too; it’s often called considers it “an in ringement on the
f
extra-bittersweet. Taste it first to find standard of identity for chocolate,”
your preference. This is especially impor- according to the Chocolate Manu acturers
f
tant when making ganache, a frosting that Association (CMA). Some white choco-
relies solely on the flavor of the semisweet lates are labeled “white confectionary
chocolate. Look for shiny chocolate that coating.” Others are called “white choco-