A little about chocolate =)

Well apparently I have not been very good about keeping up with this lately but heres a quick update. Tomorrow will be day 7 of Chocolates and Confections class. I am thoroughly enjoying this class and all the new information I am learning! I have become so much more accurate and diligent about working with chocolate and sugar at the proper temperature, consistency, and crystallization structure. Although I don't enjoy having class so early, I look forward to and am fascinated by all the interesting facts and techniques my chef is teaching. Although it is rather complex and hard to explain, for anyone interested I can try to teach you about working with chocolate.
An interesting fact for many of you will be that when you make those "chocolate candies" for the holidays with the wafers from wegmans or walmart, they are in fact not real chocolate. This type of product is known and referred to as "coating chocolate." Real chocolate is made up of chocolate liqueur and cocoa butter (which are both extracted from a cocao bean). Coating chocolate contains vegetable oils, rather than cocoa butter. This makes the product, easier to work with, less expensive, and gives a higher melting point (which is why they work great for frozen candies.)  However compared to real chocolate, the taste is a lot less rich in flavor and the overall texture, snap and crunch of the candy is different.

If you take a very close look at the picture you can see three different stages of the chocolate. The test on the bottom right is the first one. This test came out with a grainy texture and was slow to set up. The second test (top right) set up a little faster however is streaky. And the third an final test on the far left, showed up shiny, and smooth. As a side note - perfectly tempered chocolate should have a shiny smooth texture, a good snap, and should set up within 5-7 minutes. (Like I said, its a lot more complex than it sounds but its a very interesting process to learn and experiment with.) Heres a few more pictures of the products we've been making in class: 

Well that's all for tonight, love you all and feel free to leave comments or questions =)