Bought some chocolate at the dollar store earlier. It’s a hot day for Ontario, ninety degrees. Did some errands, walked the dog, and the chocolate felt squishy so got put into the fridge.
I’ve spent enough time in Mexico to know it doesn’t have to be this way. Chocolate can be treated, somehow, so it does not melt instantly when it’s warm. Some questions, though.
Does making chocolate melt resistant change its flavour? Lower its quality? Cost a lot to do?
How do they do it? When did it become a thing?
Why isn’t it more widespread? Because stores are cool and chocolate is instantly consumed? Chocolate varies a lot in quality - is heat-resistant stuff more wax and less cocoa butter?
Do they sell heat resistant chocolate where you live? Which brands do better when its boiling?
My understanding, based on knowledge I gained when I had a major chocolate processor as a client, is that “treating” chocolate to give it a higher melting point is done by replacing a percentage of the cocoa butter (which has a melting point of just below human body temperature) with another fat that has a higher melting point.
The downside, as I understand it, is that doing so also changes the flavor and texture profile of the resulting chocolate, nearly always for the worse.
For example, that chocolate processor made a type of chocolate which they called “bunny chocolate,” as it’s often used for chocolate Easter bunnies, and other types of chocolate products which are made to be held in the hand; they replace a significant amount of the cocoa butter with another fat. It has a higher melting point, for sure, but it also tastes waxy and “off” to someone who is used to what chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa butter tastes like.
Hershey’s (in)famously developed the tropical chocolate bar late in WWII. It was not… well received.
The Tropical Bar (it was called the D ration throughout the war, despite its new appellation) had more of a resemblance to normal chocolate bars in its shape and flavor than the original D ration, which it gradually replaced by 1945. While attempts to sweeten its flavor were somewhat successful, nearly all U.S. soldiers found the Tropical Bar tough to chew and unappetizing; reports from countless memoirs and field reports are almost uniformly negative.[ citation needed ] Instead, the bar was either discarded or traded to unsuspecting Allied troops or civilians for more appetizing foods or goods. Resistance to accepting the ration soon appeared among the latter groups after the first few trades.
This is correct. I’ve worked in numerous chocolate facilities. We couldn’t ship any quality chocolate from May - October unless in refrigerated trucks - Callebaut, Guittard, etc. Not even true chocolate sprinkles. The various components of cocoa butter melt between 93F - 101F (34 - 38C).
Producers have been working on it, and as of 2015, Callebaut devised a bar that’s stable to 100F. Idk if it’s commercially available, or where the science is currently.
A lot of confections are chocolate and something else - nuts, caramel, rice, mint, peanut butter, a thousand forms of sugar. I always thought Smarties - in Canada a small lump of chocolate in a coloured sugar shell was relatively heat resistant (since if the chocolate melted it wouldn’t be noticed). Early commercials for similar M&Ms even advertise melting in your mouth and not in your hand. Obviously this is not highest quality chocolate.
Anything better? (I think Smarties in the US are something different from in Canada and Europe).
Yes, in the U.S., Smarties are a totally different kind of candy (and aren’t chocolate at all - they’re basically little discs of sugar); Canadian Smarties are closer in concept to M&Ms, which had the same sort of ad slogan for many years. A combination of the hard candy coating, and probably low-cocoa-butter-content chocolate, are how they deliver on that.
Not quite sure what those are officially called in Canada (Rockets?). They are a relatively popular giveaway on Hallowe’en and perhaps the second most unpopular+. Those terrible molasses toffees in a ghost and pumpkin wrapper are the most unpopular item here+.
+Based on a highly official poll of myself and two siblings augmented by years of trading candy with friends to maximize sucrosatisifaction.
A local candy and chocolate store closes for the entire month of July because it gets too hot. It’s just as hot in August, but they probably can’t afford that.
Signs all over the store warn you not to keep the chocolate in a hot car. We always go straight home after buying stuff there. It’s great chocolate, why take a chance?
As a wildland firefighter starting out in the 1980s, we ate a lot of C-Rats and K-Rats, circa WWII and Korea. Everyone hoarded the chocolate bars, even though they were 30-40 plus years old. They were good.
I’ve heard that honey lasts forever, that samples found in Egyptian mastaba are still edible. But, like many wines, I doubt chocolate improves with age. Maybe I’m wrong.
Waiter, do you have something in a 1983 Nestle Crunch?
I actually like Rockets - they are very tart as well as sweet. The molasses candy - I haven’t seen those in over a decade, since the giveaway candy of choice now seems to be bite-size versions of assorted chocolate bars. Those keep for several months, provided you buy enough.
When you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last?
Do you suck them very slowly, or crunch them very fast?
They’re candy coated chocolate, so tell me when I ask,
when you eat your smarties do yo eat the red ones last?
The jingle sticks in my head for over 50 years…
I did not know that Smarties - the candy coated chocolate - were not available in the USA. I’ve always taken them for granted, and M&M’s and Reese’s Pieces (thanks to ET) are relatively newer interlopers.
