Top mistakes when cooking with chocolate
There’s no doubt that using chocolate in recipes both savory and sweet is incredibly rewarding. For starters, it tastes amazing. A hit of chocolate can have all of your tastebuds dancing and endorphins flowing. But that’s not all there is to this beloved ingredient. It’s also incredibly versatile. You can add it to an umami dish to bring out the earthiness. You can make a cake that will bring people to tears. It brings out the best in the flavors around it. There is not much the humble cacao bean can’t do.
But just because chocolate is a powerhouse, that doesn’t mean cooking or baking with it is a breeze. It’s a complex ingredient that requires care to live up to its full potential. Luckily, the common mistakes that people make are easily fixed. They just require you to know a little bit more about how chocolate behaves in different environments. That’s why we created a list of the biggest mistakes people make and how to do it right. Let’s get started!
Mistake One: Not using the right kind of chocolate.
One of the reasons that chocolate is so versatile to cook with is that it’s versatile in general. From sweet and creamy white chocolate to rich and bittersweet dark chocolate, there is a flavor for every occasion. But what works in one recipe won’t necessarily work in another. A white chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream is a match made in heaven.
But throw that white chocolate into your chili recipe instead of dark chocolate and you’ll get a much different flavor than you anticipated. Taste your chocolate beforehand to know it’s the right one for your recipe.
Mistake Two: Not accounting for the heat.
Chocolate is temperamental. Too cold and it’ll be as hard as concrete and lose some of its flavor. Too hot and you’ll have chocolate soup. The temperature in your home is going to play a big role in how your chocolate needs to be treated. Make sure to turn the air up in your home on that warm summer days.Mistake Three: Using low quality chocolate.
It can be tempting to buy the cheapest chocolate for your recipe and call it a day. After all, isn’t it just going to get masked up by the other ingredients? But the truth is that the quality of your chocolate makes all the difference in taste, no matter how much you think no one can taste it. Low quality chocolate leaves a weird aftertaste, making the tradeoff not quite worth it.
Mistake Four: Letting chocolate overpower everything else.
If chocolate were a world leader, it would be a dictator. This ingredient has the potential to overpower everything in its path. Using it is a real art, and that’s why extra care has to be taken in any recipe. Taste things as you go, because the last thing you want is a pot of chili that tastes like a vat of chocolate fondue.
There are many problems to avoid when using chocolate for anything other than eating it as is, but avoiding these common mistakes can make a huge difference in your future chocolate meals. With a little practice, you’ll soon be a pro.