COOKING WITH CHOCOLATE
“The magic is in choosing the chocolate with the specific flavour profile to fit your recipe.”
Willie Harcourt-Cooze
My approach to cooking is the same as my approach to making chocolate. It is all about flavour. Flavour coming from the best ingredients, perfect flavour combinations and balance.
Top chefs like Marco Pierre-White and Ottolenghi use our couverture chocolates, quite simply because they bring such incredible depth and beautiful pure flavour notes. Purity and naturalness is key. If I wanted soya lecithin or vanilla in my recipes I would put them in, but I don’t want them coming in by the back door, hidden in the chocolate!
There are many chocolate disasters just waiting to happen in the kitchen. Hopefully these tips will help you avoid them and make all your chocolate cooking triumphant!
- Choose the chocolate to suit your recipe.
The best couverture chocolates will be made from single estate beans with particular flavour profiles. Choose the one that best suits your recipe. Find out more here
- Ingredients at room temperature.
Melted chocolate hates coming into contact with cold ingredients. If you are making a mousse for example, take the eggs and cream out of the fridge an hour or so before and use them when the chill has gone off them.
- Melting chocolate.
Never let your bowl touch the water. Always melt chocolate very slowly, and stir constantly. Take even more care to go slowly with milk and white chocolates.
- Cool your melted chocolate.
Don’t try folding cream or beaten egg whites into melted chocolate that you have just taken off the heat. Cool it for a few minutes first.
- Don’t try grating 100% cacao directly into a hot pan.
It will end up everywhere except in the pan. Just stir in small lumps.
