Rose Levy Beranbaum's Chocolate Guide - Bake from Scratch

      This narrative describes my romance with chocolate, beginning in the dark times when only two brands existed, neither particularly remarkable, and advancing to a vast array of options and a state of chocolate euphoria. It's difficult to envision an era when ganache (the foundation of chocolate truffles and the ultimate frosting for cakes) was largely unknown.

      When ganache became more widely recognized, the prevailing belief was that it had to be prepared in a double boiler and couldn't be made using a food processor. This heavenly blend of heavy cream and dark chocolate, if overheated, often separated, resulting in the cocoa butter rising to the surface, which could not be mixed back in. Not one to accept limitations, I discovered a foolproof method for creating ganache in a food processor by grinding the chocolate into fine particles and then adding the cream, just before boiling, with the motor running. Perfection. However, my most significant revelation came years later when people began to recognize chocolates with higher cacao percentages, causing the ganache to solidify. In my updated edition of The Cake Bible, I detail the additional cream required for each level of cacao percentage. Personally, I favor the higher percentages to balance sweets like toffee that are inherently sugary.

      Without knowing the cacao percentage of a specific chocolate, it is nearly impossible to craft new recipes. When I started consulting for a new chocolatier named Scharffen Berger, I emphasized the necessity of providing the cacao percentage, making it the first American company to do so.

      Chocolate can be quite temperamental. Melting it at temperatures over 92°F (33°C) leads to a loss of flavor and dullness in its sheen. Tempering chocolate requires a highly precise thermometer, not readily available until I invented a chocolate thermometer that is accurate to a fraction of a degree. I later uncovered a quick tempering method that, while it doesn’t achieve the same high gloss, is convenient since it doesn't need a thermometer.

      White chocolate—the often-misunderstood member of the chocolate family—eventually gained recognition as long as it contains cocoa butter. Many assumed they disliked white chocolate because it lacks cacao to temper its sweetness, but I discovered that when added to cake batter, its cocoa butter, milk solids, and lecithin contribute to improved rise, a moister and silkier texture, and a longer shelf-life. Since white chocolate typically contains about one-third sugar, I reduce the sugar content in the cake batter accordingly.

      Dark chocolate changes properties when overheated, which is why cocoa is preferable for cake batter. When cocoa is combined with boiling water, it breaks the cell membranes of each grain, releasing its full flavor profile.

      After years of research and experimentation, while consulting for Procter & Gamble on its cake mix, I was able to tackle the question of how to enhance chocolate's intensity. Here's the method: Bake a chocolate cake using cocoa powder and butter, then puncture holes in it post-baking to infuse a ganache that is thin enough to permeate the cake's structure (by weight, double cream to chocolate), resulting in a moist, fudgy, and flavorful cake, as the chocolate won't be baked into it. Store the cake in a room lined with chocolate, as chocolate absorbs nearby aromas. Lastly, have people taste it in that room because what you smell amplifies the flavor of what you taste. This represents the ultimate way to fully appreciate chocolate.