0 The New Complete Book of Food
Buying This Food
Look for: Tightly sealed boxes or bars. When you open a box of chocolates or unwrap a
candy bar, the chocolate should be glossy and shiny. Chocolate that looks dull may be stale,
or it may be inexpensively made candy without enough cocoa butter to make it gleam and
give it the rich creamy mouthfeel we associate with the best chocolate. (Fine chocolate melts
evenly on the tongue.) Chocolate should also smell fresh, not dry and powdery, and when
you break a bar or piece of chocolate it should break cleanly, not crumble. One exception: If
you have stored a bar of chocolate in the refrigerator, it may splinter if you break it without
bringing it to room temperature first.Storing This Food
Store chocolate at a constant temperature, preferably below 78°F. At higher temperatures,
the fat in the chocolate will rise to the surface and, when the chocolate is cooled, the fat will
solidify into a whitish powdery bloom. Bloom is unsightly but doesn’t change the chocolate’s
taste or nutritional value. To get rid of bloom, melt the chocolate. The chocolate will turn
dark, rich brown again when its fat recombines with the other ingredients. Chocolate with
bloom makes a perfectly satisfactory chocolate sauce.
Dark chocolate (bitter chocolate, semisweet chocolate) ages for at least six months
after it is made, as its flavor becomes deeper and more intense. Wrapped tightly and stored in
a cool, dry cabinet, it can stay fresh for a year or more. Milk chocolate ages only for about a
month after it is made and holds its peak flavor for about three to six months, depending on
how carefully it is stored. Plain cocoa, with no added milk powder or sugar, will stay fresh
for up to a year if you keep it tightly sealed and cool.Preparing This Food
* * *What Happens When You Cook This Food
Chocolate burns easily. To melt it without mishap, stir the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of
hot water or in the top of a double boiler or put the chocolate in a covered dish and melt it in
the microwave (which does not get as hot as a pot on the store).
Simple chemistry dictates that chocolate cakes be leavened with baking soda rather
than baking powder. Chocolate is so acidic that it will upset the delicate balance of acid
(cream of tartar) and base (alkali = sodium bicarbonate = baking soda) in baking powder.
But it is not acidic enough to balance plain sodium bicarbonate. That’s why we add an acidic
sour-milk product such as buttermilk or sour cream or yogurt to a chocolate cake. Without
the sour milk, the batter would be so basic that the chocolate would look red, not brown,
and taste very bitter.