How to enjoy craft chocolate in the summer

So we’ve two bits of advice. First: don’t store your chocolate in the fridge (unless you are in the tropics, and even here it’s not ideal).  Second: savour a piece or two of your favourite craft chocolate bars to cool down.

As chocolate aficionados, you no doubt know not to leave your chocolate out in the sun – nor to store it in the fridge! -as this can cause the change to retemper and bloom.  Far better to find a cool, and ideally dark, cabinet. If you are a subscriber, you’ll also have one of our “pouches” to store any bars. I personally also find tupperware boxes very helpful here.

Why you want to avoid badly tempered, and out of tempered, chocolate …

If you want to know more about chocolate tempering, please see here for a deep dive.  But here are the essentials:

1. Tempering is a technical name for changing the “crystal” structure of a material; so for example Japanese sword makers “temper” steel to create razor sharp and incredibly strong swords
2. Cocoa butter has various “crystal structures”, including a magical one called “crystal structure 5” (not a very romantic name I know, and do use the Roman symbols not “5”).  Crystal structure V is solid at (most) room temperature, but melts at human body temperature
3. Getting to crystal structure V is tricky – it (generally) involves heating conched chocolate to between 28-32 degrees celsius, and then carefully cooling it
4. Moving from crystal structure V to VI is unfortunately very easy; rapidly increase and/or decrease the temperature of a chocolate bar and it retempers to crystal structure VI
5. … and if a chocolate recrystallizes to crystal structure 6, the snap will be far more brittle, it’ll bloom (ie some cocoa butter will rise to the surface,and the chocolate will go a greyish/white colour on the surface), and it will no longer melt in your mouth
6. Fear not. Not all is lost. You can still make a great chocolate cake, mousse, drink etc. And if it’s a craft chocolate, the white stuff (ie cocoa butter) is a great lotion you can rub on yourself, partner etc. (DO NOT do this with the white stuff on mass produced chocolate as this is often full of vegetable fats, palm oils, PGPR etc. which are NOT conducive to a tender massage…)

And why savouring well tempered chocolate on a sunny day is “cool(ing)”

Another great benefit from a sunny day is that you can savour craft chocolate to cool you down. Try it. Take a square of chocolate. Pop it in your mouth. Allow it to melt. And you’ll find your mouth cooling down.

The melting of the chocolate is literally “pulling” heat from your tongue and mouth. This cooling sensation is further enhanced by the evaporation of your saliva, as it too absorbs heat front the chocolate melting (and releases all sorts of flavours and aromas – see below).

Think of it as being like when you perspire, which cools you down by using your body heat to evaporate your sweat.  But savouring chocolate avoids the need for e.g., clammy, sweaty T shirts. Or think of savouring chocolate as being a sophisticated form of when a dog pants to cool down (unlike humans, dogs don’t sweat to cool down – hence their panting, tongue flapping, etc. when it’s hot).

As you savour craft chocolate, you can also appreciate the unique texture of a well conched and ground chocolate. The heat from your mouth causes the cocoa butter to melt and because the chocolate has been conched down to below 15 microns, it creates a thin film that seems like a wonderful gooey liquid (technically it’s still a solid) that  coats your tongue and mouth, creating a texture  – that depending on the bean, addition of cocoa butter, degree of grinding and conching – can be anything from silky to velvety, satin to cashmere etc.

The slow melting process when you savour chocolate allows you to experience the full range of textures and sensations, including the initial cooling effect from the melting fat. In contrast, scoffing and gobbling chocolate quickly melts and mixes the chocolate with saliva, diminishing the distinct cooling sensation from the melting process, and gives you no chance to enjoy the flavour journey.

And a few more reasons to treasure cocoa butter…

Cocoa butter plays a key role in savouring the tastes, flavours and textures of chocolate.

• Cocoa butter enhances the perception of sweetness in chocolate. Studies show that reducing the fat content in chocolate or chocolate milk leads to a decrease in perceived sweetness intensity, even when the sugar content remains the same. The fat seems to amplify or boost the sweet taste sensation. Try some of the bars from Zotter below to explore.
• Cocoa butter also carries, and releases, aroma compounds that contribute to the overall flavour of chocolate. By contrast other vegetable fats, palm oils, and various synthetic fats even when “deodorised” can’t recreate this magic.
• The lubricating mouthfeel provided by cocoa butter can also help overcome some of the astringency from high percentage chocolate. Try a supermarket 100% chocolate and you’ll find that, unlike a craft chocolate 100%, they are far drier – and we think that this is because they may be adding cocoa mass to “bulk out” the chocolate.