Thursday, October 22, 2009

Polymorphism and You

Interesting title for a lecture, no? We sat through an hour's worth of super interesting information on the polymorphistic characteristics of chocolate. Polymorphism means that a substance can crystallize into several distinct forms. One great example is carbon. At its softest stage, it is the graphite you find in pencils. At its hardest stage, it is a diamond! Pretty interesting.

Chocolate contains several types of crystals that change form over time. It gets complicated...and anyone can temper chocolate without knowing all the science, but I think the science part is fun! Chef G compared the crystals to rabbits (which multiply endlessly) and gave us some helpful tips about tempering. After a short break, we were let loose to finish our products.

Surprisingly, this one project took us all day! I love the way artisan chocolates look - imperfect and handmade by a human! Made with aloha as well :)

Anise Sticks
These were made using the piped ganache technique. We piped them in long strands and precoated them (yesterday), and then cut them into two inch sticks. Next we tempered some milk chocolate and proceeded to dip each stick individually, using a dipping fork.
They were laid out on an icing rack. After setting for awhile, we rolled them a few times to create the spikey effect!
I was amused to find that these actually tasted good! I don't care much for milk chocolate or anise (licorice), but this recipe was subtle enough for me to like.

1 comment:

Your FSIL said...

I read this and started thinking about how much fun a chemistry class would be if someone came in and gave a spiel on the chemics (as in, physics, but chemics) of food. Our high school kids would eat it up! :)

A lot of my kids struggle with math and chemistry and stuff like that, but your blogs are really showing why these things are so important and how they're totally relevant.

I've been hearing about chocolate coated bacon. When do you get to do that? :)

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