Well, I have this reciepe, it’s a fabulous cookie reciepe. And would you believe it but you have to grate chocolate. This is my delema… You see your hands are warm, chocolate melts when near warm things. And you can’t just stick the chocolate in a food processor because it’s not the same, otherwise I would buy coco powder you know? So we tried… freezing the grater, freezing the chocolate, holding it with paper towels, and finally tried to freeze my hands. But it still is rather messy and a hard thing to accomplish. Is there some secret to grating chocolate? please help if you can
Are you grating it on a board? Or on the box type in this picture? Four sided grater
Have you tried the type of grater that uses a cranked cylinder? (The crank is obscured in this picture, but the cheese/chocolate is placed in the box above the grating cylinder and the handle closes the lid over it. When you turn the crank, the pressure of your hand holding the two halves of the handle presses the cheese/chocolate into the grating drum.) Crank grater
There are several fancy versions of this, but you can probably find a cheap metal or plastic version by Ecko or someone at either the supermarket or K-Mart, Wal-Mart, or wherever.
Honestly, I don’t see the use of grating chocolate. It is a messy proposition (and this is coming from a pastry chef that has dealt with quite a bit of chocolate). I would either get a chocolate chopper (it looks like an ice pick with several tongs, can get at a cook’s specialty shop for about $5-$10) and you can chop the block of chocolate down into relatively small bits.
Or, if you are working with a relatively large block of chocolate, you can use a large chefs knife and starting from the edge, you can shave chocolate from the block rather finely, and chop it as needed.
You have to know when to cheat.
Grating chocolate works… but it’s way easier to use other stuff. Try going by a high end dessert place and seeing if they have any remnants (oooh remnants).
Or try melting it, if you’re just going to mix in it with the batter.
Or by cocoa powder or (in a pinch) hot chocolate mix (just cut back on the sugar if you do that.)
I asked my Mom about this, she ran a bake shop, and she said she never heard of anyone putting little chocolate shavings on cookies. She asked if you were making big wide chocolate curls, which is fairly common. She said there’s a tool for making chocolate curls, you just drag it across a chocolate bar and it makes the big curls automatically.
So… it would help a bit if you could describe the desired qualities of the chocolate shavings you are trying to create.