Chocolate Indulgence

This week, a friend brought a bag of low sugar coconut cups to work. She'd bought them at a big box store and was disappointed with them. Naturally, the solution was to put them in the break room where they rapidly disappeared. 

Curious, I grabbed one for analysis. At 80 calories per piece with only 3g of sugar and made of organic dark chocolate, they certainly have their appeal -- for the "health benefits" of chocolate and their keto- and low-carb-diet-friendly composition. I expected to find alternative or artificial sweeteners on the ingredient list, but didn't. 

I bit into one. The chocolate appeared to be in good temper. At 85%, it came across as very bitter and the centre didn't have a particularly strong coconut flavour. My immediate thought was that it entirely lacked balance. There wasn't enough sweetness to balance the brute chocolate, nor was there any salt. Beyond that, the centre had a strange texture. I returned to the ingredient list and was surprised to see white chocolate listed. Instead of combining the coconut with sugar for the filling, they had set it with white chocolate. Nothing wrong with that of course, but the two ingredients have very different crystal structures that result in different textures.

Now if you're someone who prefers less sweet treats or if you have dietary restrictions that require you to track your sugar, these could be a good choice as an "indulgent" snack (as they are marketed). But they won't give you the same experience of, say, a Bounty bar if that's what you were hoping for. And if that's what you were hoping for, I'm not sure you'll be satisfied. It might make more sense to buy the bounty bar and share it with a friend or save half for another day. 

Interestingly, this taste experience aligned incredibly well with my chocolate study this week. I've moved on from Notter's The Art of the Chocolatier and have started reading Chocolates & Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner by Peter Greweling. This beast of a book is a confectioner's bible. In online forums, it's referenced regularly when chocolatiers discuss challenges with particular centres, formulations, etc. Greweling's recipes often are suggested as the starting point for a chocolatier's riffing and experimentation. 

The first chapter, titled "Confectionary Ingredients and Equipment" devotes 5 pages of very small font to sweeteners, their properties, and their applications. For the confectioner, sweeteners aren't just about flavour, they are about function and form. And, as Greweling points out, understanding sugar's "tendency [to crystallize] and knowing how to control it are two of the most fundamental concepts in confectionary" (p.2). Crystal structure is what gives good fudge its characteristic texture. 

And that's also what gives a Bounty bar is form and mouthfeel -- the characteristics that were missing in the low-sugar coconut cup.