Making Milk Chocolate

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Permalink Reply by Tom on February 24, 2013 at 9:55pm

As a general rule you want to have your cocoa fats (calculated from liquor and added cocoa butter) between 35 and 45%. My milk chocolates are down around the 35% and dark chocolates can be up to 45% but generally about 40%. You are going way too heavy on the milk powder in my opinion, the most I have ever had in a formulation has been 20%. Good luck, formulating milk chocolate is tricky to get just how you would like it, with the desired rheology.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Forbes on February 24, 2013 at 10:34pm

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Forbes on February 25, 2013 at 12:21pm

When I think about the next batch it is still unclear to me.  Assuming all milk chocolate is not as think as the last batch, the only way it would be less viscous, is to increase the percentage of butter.  The liquor is around 53% fat and with the added butter being an 20% - 25% butter getting to the 35% + total cocao fats.  I used 26% liquor on the last batch and it still is a little dark. 

I still have another 55-60% left of sugar and milk powder.  I tend to stay above the 35% (total bar) sugar content.  That still gets me over 20% and probably closer to 30%.  Do I need to add more sugar, keep the milk powder content to 20 and lower the liquor and raise the butter a little to get a good milk bar. 

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Permalink Reply by Gap on February 25, 2013 at 5:28pm

My last batch of milk chocolate (which we were pretty happy with) was:

11% cocoa nibs

26% cocoa butter

28% sugar (I split it 19% sucrose and 9% lactose)

4% skim milk powder

28% full fat milk powder (26% fat) - spray dried milk powder

0.4% vanilla

1.75% dark malt extract

0.4% lecithin

This recipe gave total milk fat of 7.5% which means the tempering can be tricky. Also, the milk powder I was using was spray dried - if it was some different sort, there may be more free fat available meaning 7.5% total milk fat is too much. I added malt because I like the taste, but 1.75% was probably too much - would try 1% next time.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Forbes on February 25, 2013 at 6:47pm

Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Tom on February 27, 2013 at 9:14pm

Wow that is almost a white chocolate!

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Permalink Reply by Gap on February 27, 2013 at 9:16pm

It gives a result pretty close to what most people associate milk chocolate with. For me, I prefer a darker milk but this keeps a lot of friends and family happy.

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Permalink Reply by Gap on February 27, 2013 at 9:34pm

My darker milk is:

32% cocoa nibs

13% cocoa butter

27% sugar (sucrose)

9% skim milk powder

19% full fat milk powder (26% fat) - spray dried milk powder

0.4% lecithin

To me, this one tasted like a chocolate milkshake

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