quote:
Originally posted by johnp.
I’ve been quite disheartened this summer to discover that a lot of the good and interesting chocolate available in Oslo, and generally sold in smaller stores, has been abysmal. I blame this on the heat. What exactly happens when a chocolate gets ruined by heat?
This is a classic condition, known as “bloom”. What happens is, the cocoa butter rises to the surface, i.e. falls out of emulsion with the chocolate. The effect is identical to that of pure peanut butter separating into oil and solids – and for the same reason, heat (btw, this gives you a simple solution for separating PB – just put it in the fridge after mixing.) This drives off volatiles and as you’ve seen also ruins the texture because you no longer have a homogeneous emulsion.
Many shops seem to be completely oblivious to this effect. Even places that should know better, who specialise in chocolate, don’t seem to grasp the fundamental point: chocolate is ruined in the heat, even if it doesn’t melt. Strangely, I’ve also encountered a peculiar obstinacy: when I’ve talked to shop owners about the problem they immediately become *completely resistant* to the idea that it might be an issue. Usually I get the eyes-rolling look of someone who dismisses me as some lunatic fanatic.
I think some of it may be due to industry misinformation, even today one sees literally everywhere, on labels and even in books references to chocolate bloom, clearly identifying what it is, and yet claiming that the quality of the chocolate is unaffected. How it can be that people clearly knowledgeable about the process of chocolate bloom can possibly imagine the quality is unaffected is something that I’m at a total loss to explain, other than the possibility that some companies may not want to be obligated to provide a refund to the customer in the event of a bloomed bar.
Nonetheless, I think the greater proportion of the problem lies in not being aware that bloom is a problem at all. Most people tend to view solid objects as something with pretty static properties unaffected by such things as heat, so that if an object isn’t obviously deformed in the heat there’s probably nothing wrong with it. Materials scientists of course know better, but that requires technical knowledge most people won’t have access to.
I’ve seen worse offences, too, like shops that routinely stock their chocolate right next to prominent heat sources like ovens or heat lamps without any sense that this might be problematic. It’s, as I say, particularly baffling when one sees this behaviour at really high-quality stockists who’ve obviously taken some time to understand the quality of the chocolates they’re selling.
Anyway, I think the time is long overdue for a strong publicity campaign aimed at retailers that makes them aware of chocolate’s sensitive storage needs. Sometimes only small adjustments to shelf position can have an enormous effect on shelf life. And it might also help to weed out suspicious distributors: even the very most conscientious stockists sometimes get a bloomed batch not through their own inattention but because the distributor wasn’t careful. In the very long run, such a campaign might also help to create a sorely needed item: the dedicated chocolate cooler, a box that can retain ~15c temperatures in a small space with controlled humidity. Anybody have any ideas?
Btw, to your stockists you might want to mention individually the problem of bloom and see if they respond.
Alex Rast
Alex_Rast_Alternate@hushmail.com
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