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at Sun, 23 Jan 2005 03:45:16 GMT in
>,
lid (Scott) wrote :

>In article >,
> (Alex Rast) wrote:
>
>> There's no need to make a distinction between "eating" and "cooking"
>> chocolate. If a chocolate isn't good for eating, it isn't good for
>> cooking.
>
>But would it be a waste of money to use top of the line chocolate for
>cooking in recipes that call for many other ingredients? That is, while
>I certainly wouldn't use Baker's (brand) chocolate to make fudge,
>wouldn't it be overkill to use Amedei Porcelana?

It's certainly not a waste of money to use top-of-the-line chocolate for
recipes that call for other ingredients - you really *can* tell the
difference. In many cases, the difference is stunning. Part of the issue is
that some people don't realise that the difference between good chocolate
and bad chocolate really is very large - it's not a subtle distinction.

For example, I used Amedei Chuao to make brownies, and the results were,
pretty much as I expected, out-of-this-world. Some people might think
brownies too lowbrow for Amedei Chuao, but I think precisely the reverse,
that the taste of Chuao harmonises perfectly with the tastes you want in a
brownie and is hence an ideal choice.

Meanwhile, it might be a waste to use Amedei Porcelana in fudge, but not
because it would be a waste to use good chocolate, but rather because
Porcelana, which has a mild, delicate flavour, might not be the best
chocolate in this application, which demands a bolder and more assertive
chocolate. I'd probably want to use something like Domori Puertomar. BTW,
Domori's Porcelana is also considerably better than Amedei's version. I
used it to make an icing for a chocolate cake - where it was the perfect
choice.

That's not to say you can't get good results with quality chocolate that
isn't necessarily at the top of the snob-appeal scale - e.g. Ghirardelli,
Callebaut, etc., but it's virtually impossible to get good results with
chocolate that's genuinely *bad*, e.g. Baker's, Hershey's milk chocolate,
etc.

--
Alex Rast

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