Chocolate: In the Hands of Pastry Chef

There are many ways to use chocolate as decoration but a normal dark or white chocolate with a liquid texture for an easier manipulation is used in this type of work, as it does not require any special taste. For a chocolate show piece I personally use a normal 55% cocoa for the moulding and the body of my piece.

-  Chef Gilles Favre

In case of a Chocolate Spray I would use a mix of dark, white or milk chocolate with a certain percentage of pure cocoa butter to give the required fluidity to be spread with a chocolate gun. By using onto a room temperature or frozen chocolate the show piece, the result will be different. The aspect can go from a slightly shiny to a matt velvet finish.

To make Chocolate Plastic, it is by adding glucose syrup and some sugar syrup made with water and sugar to the white or dark chocolate you get a chocolate modeling which is the same texture and plasticity as a modeling paste that your children are using to do small figurines.

Chocolate as an Ingredient

Nowadays, you can find in the Indian market a large variety range of chocolate - all different in taste from one to the other and like the wines in France, a lot depends on where the cocoa tree has been cultivated. From the Caribbean to the Ivory Coast by Brazil to Colombia and Sri Lanka to Madagascar - all these cocoa tree plantations, because of the soil, the climate (the general terroir) impart to the cocoa bean a flavour range from red fruit to dried fruits and grilled almonds to a woody taste!

For ease of understanding, I am dividing my work in three categories where I can choose the chocolate I want to use depending on the work. It would depend on the end result I wish to achieve the taste I want to give to these products. It follows as:

Chocolate Making - Ganache, Chocolate Bonbon, Coating and Moulding

Patisserie Pastry Ganache, Biscuit, Mousse and Creamy

Ice Cream Sorbet and Sauces

Why is certain quality of chocolate required when used with baked products?

Actually, there is no special requirement from the quality of chocolate when you want to work with some baked products. This largely depends on your taste and what you want to be discovered by your guest!