quote:

2 big problems.

The first one, which is probably causing the problem, is that
mixing an 80% or higher with cocoa butter is simply diluting
your chocolate. An 80% chocolate will (usually) have upwards
of 40% cacao butter to begin with, and adding more just makes
it a greater fat percentage (= milder taste, greater fluidity,
melts more easily) You shouldn't need to add any more cocoa
butter, not until your sugar percentage becomes large.

Second, you're not tempering the chocolate (particularly critical
when working with high cocoa butter percentages). See the numerous
previous posts on tempering. The basic idea is that cocoa butter has
many crystal forms, only one of which is stable, and you need to
get it all into that form, which involves a controlled process of
cooling and reheating.

I also suspect that adding maple syrup, a liquid sugar, isn't helping
much either.

Alex Rast
Alex_Rast_Alternate@hushmail.com

I'm very new at this, so be nice to me ;) I've done my own chocolate mixing different 80% or darker with cacao butter and (just a small amount, maybe 5 grams per 100gram chocolate) maple syrup. It tastes wonderful but it melts too easy, just by touching it it starts melting so I keep it refrigerated. I'm not advanced in my chocolate making and I just melt it all together on low temperature and allow it to get hard in the fridge. Might not be enough then I guess?

Thanks.