Just Baking

Chocolate is growing up.  In its youth, it presented itself to cooks and candymakers in three simple notes:  milk, dark, and white.  But now, with the advent of epicurean refinement (or snobbery) and the growing foodie obsession with variety (or perfection), chocolate has matured into a veritable Crayola box of choices.

For a baker, the choices in the chocolate category tantalize and inspire.  There is Valrhona, sexy and dark.  El Rey, exotic and perfumed.  Callebaut, sophisticated and smooth.  And now, upmarket brands are even finding their way into the aisles of national grocery stores.

Why the recent parade of premium chocolates?  Well, for starters, there’s a demand for them that wasn’t once there.  The Betty Crockers of the world used to be perfectly content to use Baker’s squares of unsweetened and semi-sweet chocolate, with the sporadic bag of Nestle chips for more playful occasions.  And Hershey was the monopolizing standby for unsweetened cocoa powder.  But in recent years, cooking has become a social obsession whose devout followers demand the best above the rest - and crave the knowledge to know the difference.   The movement is visible in the popularity of the Food Network, cooking publications of every style and flavor, and cult-favorite cooking competitions that seem to bring out the crazed chef in everyone.  These self-taught, grocery-store-patronizing gastronomes are no longer content to settle for Baker’s.  They want a chocolate that has depth and complexity.  They want the Mecca of cacao.  And chocolate producers are delivering.

Take Nestle, for instance.  Recognizing the evolution occurring in the baking aisle, it recently introduced the Chocolatier line of baking chocolates, available in 53% and 62% cocoa content.  These percent amounts are now ubiquitous status symbols for baking chocolate, indicating how truly “chocolate-y” the respective bar is.  The higher the content, the purer the product, resulting in better baked goods.  Semi-sweet chocolates with a lower percentage of cocoa often come across as cloying; not a desirable outcome for any dessert.

Then there’s Guittard, whose San Francisco-based chocolates have been around for over a century but are now growing more popular with the everyday cook.  The family-owned company prides itself on purity of ingredients (nothing artificial in these bars) and offers up chocolate for eating and baking.  Their white chocolate has a 31% cacao content – relatively high for a white chocolate – revealing itself in a creamy, subtle flavor.

Not to be outdone, Hershey’s is also jumping on the bandwagon with the Cacao Reserve line of chocolates, which also heralds its percent cocoa content and announces new flavor notes such as red wine and herbs.  Not necessarily ideal for baking, yet tuning in to the zeitgeist nonetheless.  This artisanal brand champions the art of savoring chocolate and tasting it with the same scrutiny as a fine wine. 

And, much like wine connoisseurs who won’t cook with anything undrinkable, many pastry chefs subscribe to the philosophy that if you wouldn’t eat it, you shouldn’t bake with it.  Testing out (read: snacking on) the different brands and cacao contents is a worthwhile activity, and varying chocolate brands is the simplest way to elevate the quality of the finished dessert.

For burgeoning and professional bakers alike, the grown-up chocolates in the grocery have helped to welcome in a more sophisticated culture of cacao.  And it tastes pretty damn good.