An Evaluation of the Effect of Different Tempering Conditions on Dark Chocolate Compositions

© 2018 EUROSIS-ETI. The optimal tempering condition to obtain a superior quality chocolate with good contraction, gloss and texture without forming any fat bloom during storage can vary for each product depending on its composition. For a standard chocolate having an average fat dosage, the temper index (TI) for a well-tempered condition is between 4 and 6. This may differ for more extreme recipes such as a high-fat and low-fat chocolate. In such a case, the lesser undercooling required for a high-fat chocolate may become an advantage for minimizing energy consumption within the production line. This study evaluates the effect of tempering conditions on chocolates with different fat compositions by using a standard cocoa butter seed addition (CBSA) technique used by Cargill® and conventional tempering by Aasted temper unit. The results indicated that the high-fat chocolate tempered to TI 2.0 showed an equivalent quality to TI 5.0 in terms of hardness and fat bloom stability whereas, a TI of 7.0 was necessary for the low-fat chocolate to attain a better bloom stability than TI 5.0. Therefore, this study demonstrates that the faster crystallization power of high-fat chocolates and the slower crystallization power of low-fat chocolates necessitates the adaptation of the temper indexes.

ISBN:9789492859013

Publication year:2018