Chocolate Types: Special Chocolate
Updated: Feb 19
The Meeting of Creativity and Taste
We continue to get to know the world of chocolate in a practical way, with terms used in our daily life, without drowning in technical details. After Madlen chocolates, the most common type of chocolate we encounter is special chocolates.
As you know, the word special is a word of English origin meaning special, unique. From this point of view, special chocolate may not have a descriptive meaning for us, it is a very broad expression.
In the world of chocolate, special chocolate means presenting different flavors and aromas in creative ways by meeting with chocolate. For example, a butterfly-shaped chocolate with raspberry, an almond-shaped chocolate with almonds, or a pearly hazelnut chocolate.
There is no form or flavor pattern that restricts you in special chocolate. If he wishes, the chocolate master can use coconut to make a chocolate in the form of a lipstick, or a chocolate in the form of a grenade with hot pepper. It's entirely up to your imagination. Specialty chocolates are usually sold unwrapped in wrapping paper to lure us in with its appearance at first. Thus, they prepare you to savor its taste with its magnificent view before tasting.
Specialty chocolates are divided into 2 basic classes in the chocolate industry: Molded specialty chocolates and Handmade specialty chocolates. We can compare this distinction to the distinction between machine-made carpets and hand-made carpets.
Molded Special Chocolates:
They are chocolates produced by machines in a process that does not involve humans. The tempered chocolate and filling material are filled into molds by machines and processed on the production line and become ready for consumption. The shapes of the molded chocolates are standard, generally the sales prices are more affordable.
· Handmade Special Chocolates
Although molds are used in the production of Handmade specialty chocolates, it requires mastery in some part of the process or in the final touches. When you examine it carefully, you will see that each chocolate is slightly different from each other.
A sub-group of handmade chocolates is Truffles. The ball-shaped truffle chocolates get their flavor from the filling inside or the outer coating. It is produced from milk, white, dark chocolate and can contain many flavors such as mint, raspberry, strawberry, hazelnut.
Which type of dark-milk-white chocolate is used in Special Chocolate?
Special chocolates can be used in all three types. Sometimes the same chocolate can be produced as milk, dark and white chocolate. For example, raspberry butterfly chocolate can be found in both dark, milk and white varieties. Sometimes, manufacturers may choose a type of chocolate that is suitable for the supplement. Like White Chocolate Coconut Chocolate, Dark Coffee Chocolate...
We can divide Specialty Chocolates into 3 main categories according to the material groups used:
1. Special Chocolates with Nuts/Grain:
The most frequently used filling materials in Special Chocolate are nuts and cereals. Mainly hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, wheat, peanuts, rice, sesame are the most commonly used ones.
Nuts can be used sometimes whole and sometimes broken. It is also common to use pastes such as hazelnut, almond paste or croquants. Sesame is used as crocan, as well as roasted and crushed to flavor chocolates as tahini. Rice, on the other hand, is usually found as puffed rice.
2. Fruit-Based Specialty Chocolates:
It generally contains dried fruit or fruit puree so that it can last for a long time. Raspberry, strawberry, coconut, orange, cherry, apricot, lemon are the fruits that are most compatible with both dark and milk chocolate and most preferred. Small amounts of citrus peels such as oranges and lemons also add different layers of flavor to the chocolate.
However, chocolate covered fruit should not be confused with fruit-based specialty chocolate. In the first, dry or fresh fruit is covered with chocolate, while in the other, fruit peel particles, dried fruit or fruit purees, syrups are added to give flavor to the chocolate.
Although fruit coatings are prepared with fresh fruit suitable for consumption within a few hours, the use of fresh fruit is not preferred because the water in the fruit content spoils the chocolate structure. Fruits that are consumed as whole, such as strawberries and cherries, are suitable for chocolate coating after washing and drying.
3. Flavored Special Chocolates:
Another group of our materials are materials with high artificial or natural aroma and dominant taste, such as caramel and coffee. Since it has a high odor power, it creates a positive effect on the taste of the product and strengthens the flavor emphasis.
What can beautify a chocolate as much as complementing the caramel smell you get when you bring it to your mouth with the caramel flavor you get on your palate? You can experience a similar taste in other special chocolates with high aroma value such as cinnamon, vanilla, and coffee. The group that will best accompany coffee, especially in the winter months, is the flavored special chocolate group.
Apart from these three groups, we cannot fail to highlight the special alcoholic chocolates containing rum, whiskey, vodka, fruit liqueur and special chocolates containing wafers, biscuit pieces and granola. As we mentioned at the beginning of our article, there is no limit to creativity when it comes to specialty chocolate. In a world that produces hot peppers and sweetened chocolate at the same time, who can set the rules?
Chocolate Art
In recent years, we have seen that special chocolates are transformed into works of art by using edible food dyes. Sometimes transfer printing patterns are applied on chocolate, while different patterns, mostly made into chocolate molds, transform chocolates into works of art after molding.
The transformation of each chocolate into a visual feast, a work of art, regardless of its flavor, has also led to the opening of a completely different lane for chocolate making.
Chocolates that are both personalized and high in design are produced by dyeing, which is usually applied inside the molds one by one.
Here we put a comma in our journey of specialty chocolates. We try to create as much of our own content as possible on our blog. If we have made a citation, we take care to show the source and link to the source. You are free to use any post on this blog. All we ask is that you show our blog in your bibliography and link to our website. Thank you very much, see you soon in our blog post about dragees... With love...