Chocolate – how to coat truffles with chocolate

I can think of at least three things that will cause chocolate to seize - which refers to when melted or melting chocolate suddenly becomes hard again:

• Using too high a heat. Double-boiler is the safest, but you can use a saucepan on very low heat.

• Sugar bloom and other impurities. You shouldn't get this with baker's chocolate, but if you use any lower-quality chocolate, this can seep into the melting chocolate and cause it to seize.

• Contact with moisture! Even a tiny amount will cause it to immediately seize, and it's difficult to recover at that point.

Sounds like you fell into traps #2 and #3 and possibly #1. I would not melt chocolate in margarine; I'd even be wary of melting it in butter, and find it strange that a recipe would call for that, because both butter and margarine contain water!

Melting chocolate in a liquid can actually help prevent seizing, but you have to use a lot of liquid and the liquid has to be completely melted before you start trying to melt the chocolate. It's better to use something like a vegetable oil which has no water content if this is what you're trying to do.

So, in summary:

• Definitely stay away from the margarine. Even if you need to use butter, make sure it's completely melted first and try to use only the fat (clarify it).

• If you can, melt the chocolate and clarify the butter separately and then whisk them together gradually afterward; not only will this help to prevent seizing, but if commenter @roux is correct and the problem isn't one of seizing, this will still help to guarantee that the chocolate melts evenly.

• Use the best quality chocolate you can find. Chipits are generally OK to melt on their own, but if they've been sweetened then this may contribute to seizing if other factors are present.

• Melt in a double-boiler or on very low heat.

Abstract: Ganache is delicious, but not everyone eats dairy. We examined whether coconut milk can be used for the creation of a non-dairy ganache. We ran a series of experiments. The answer is that, with some creative techniques, you can use it, but it does not come anywhere near to the real thing.

Introduction. Someone wrote a question on Seasoned advice about coconut based ganache and we got curious.

Background. We love ganache even more than pure chocolate, and make it often ourselves, so we think we have all the prerequisites needed to create and judge a coconut based ganache recipe. Our favorite ganache recipe 1 (which we used as a starting point) is: 100 g chocolate, 72% cocoa (only made from cocoa, sugar, and cocoa butter, no vegetable fat or emulsifiers); 100 g cream, at least 30% (non-UHT), 25 g butter.

Method. We prepared the base mix as follows: 25 g coconut milk were heated until boiling. They were removed from the heat. 25 g chocolate (72%) and 6g cocoa butter were added. Everything was left to dissolve. After 5 minutes, the mixture was whipped with a handheld mixer at the second-to-highest setting. This was Version 0. It was divided in two batches. Different versions were made from each batch by gradually adding guar (a knife-point-ful), egg yolk (1, in lieu of lecithine) and sugar (8g per batch). Each version was whipped for at least 3 minutes. The final versions (1c and 2b) where put for 30 min in the refrigerator, then taken out and whipped again. As there were no observable changes after the cold whipping, we do not treat them as a different version. We also made a small portion of dairy ganache for comparison purposes.

Results. These are listed in Table 1. The numbers in the ingredients columns of the table represent the order of adding the ingredients to the mixtures. Table 1. Experiment results.

The final consistency of version 1c is documented in Figure 1. Note that the peaks do not drip and you can rotate the bowl at 180° without anything falling out. The piece of chocolate was added for color comparison.

Figure 2 shows a zoom of the blue bordered area in Figure 1.

Discussion. It is possible to make a profiterole filling with coconut milk based ganache, but it isn't quite like the real deal. Also, it resembles non-whipped ganache more closely than whipped ganache.

The basic ganache recipe can be done with coconut milk instead of cream and cocoa butter instead of butter. However, it tastes fattier than real ganache, and it is runnier. Unlike dairy ganache, whipping does not result in aeration.

We think that eliminating the cocoa butter altogether will somewhat alleviate the fatiness problem, but we did not test this proposal yet.

A thickening and or emulsifying agent can improve the ganache texture. Even though egg yolk improves aeration, is not a good choice, as it results in a slimy feel. Guar is a better solution.

The addition of sugar ruins the chocolateness of the taste. If bitterness is not desired, a sweeter chocolate (50%) should be used. Only dedicated sugar lovers or Americans should resort to adding sugar. In that case, it should be added before the guar (we would suggest dissolving it in the coconut milk before boiling it) as not to interfere with the texture of the final product.

Threats to validity. First, there was a single tester (the quasi-royal we). Second, this tester is already biased in favor of dairy products in general and specifically for dairy based ganache. Third, many interesting combinations (including xanthan gum and corn starch) could not be tested due to lack of resources.

Conclusion and outlook. We found the experiment very inspirating. It was also yummy. But we'd like to issue an warning: This experiment is dangerous. In the preparation phase, we discovered a penchant for guared coconut water deep fried in coconut fat we'd rather not have known about. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to offering the results for peer preview to a chocolate-loving lactose intolerant co worker.

References: 1 My own recipe book