What type of chocolate would you use......

M

music-city-missy

Well-known member
When I was growing up the bakery at the Sunflower grocery store made these 'layered loaf' cakes. They had layers that were less than 1/2" each - about 6 layers if I remember correctly. They came in caramel and chocolate. The icing was sort of candied. Like my mom's homemade caramel icing. So, I want to start with browning the sugar and making the caramel icing and then adding chocolate. This was a very dark chocolate color but sweet. Would you add cocoa powder? or baking chocolate? and if baking chocolate or chips, what - bitter, semi-sweet, milk???

 
Sounds like you'd want a good quality cocoa powder (like Droste) for the dark chocolate color

 
Depending on how much sugar is in it, I'd use a high percentage semi-sweet or 60-70 per cent

bittersweet - definitely not milk.
Here are two chocolate caramel ganaches from my files to look at:

 
Chocolate Caramel Ganache - Marcel Desaulniers

CHOCOLATE CARAMEL GANACHE

Ingredients

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Place the chopped semisweet and unsweetened chocolate in a 4-quart bowl. Set aside.
2. In a 1 1/2-quart saucepan, combine the heavy cream and butter over moderate heat and bring to a simmer. Lower the heat to keep the cream hot but not simmering, until needed.
3. In a 3-quart saucepan, combine the sugar and the lemon juice. Whisk to combine; the sugar will resemble moist sand. Caramelize the sugar for 7 to 8 minutes over moderately-high heat, stirring constantly with a whisk to break up any lumps. The sugar will become clear as it liquefies, then it will brown as it caramelizes. Remove the saucepan from the heat.
4. Carefully pour about 1/3 of the hot cream into the caramelized sugar. Whisk the caramel until it stops bubbling, then wisk in the remaining cream until smooth. Immediately pour the hot caramel over the chopped chocolate and let stand for 5 minutes, then whisk until very smooth. Serve immediately.

MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS

By Marcel Desaulniers

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/chocolate-caramel-ganache

 
Chocolate Caramel Ganache - Pierre Herme

CHOCOLATE CARAMEL GANACHE

6 ½ ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 ½ ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped *(my note: I'd use semi-sweet or bittersweet)

2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 ½ tbsp salted butter
1 cup plus 2 tbsp whipping cream

1 ½ cups unsalted butter (3 sticks)

DIRECTIONS:

Combine chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set aside.

Put one third of sugar in the bottom of heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat. When it starts to melt, stir with wooden spoon. Once completely melted, add another third of the sugar. Once that is melted, add the last third of sugar. Cook till amber color reached (be careful it does not burn). Add butter-careful it will foam up. Once butter is combined, add the cream. Bring the cream to a boil. Pour half of this over the chocolate and stir until smooth (the smaller the chocolate is chopped, the faster it will combine). Once smooth, add the rest of the cream and stir until smooth.

While the chocolate mixture cools, take the room temperature butter and with either the mixer on low speed (paddle) or with a rubber spoon, soften until it looks like mayonnaise. Do this slowly-you do not want a lot of air in the butter. It should take about 10 minutes.

Gently stir the butter into the chocolate with a rubber spatula-you don’t want a lot of air bubbles. Stir until the mixture is smooth - this can take a little while.

Let sit for an hour or so, stirring occasionally until spreadable consistency. The longer it sits, the thicker it gets. From the poster: "I was able to pipe borders with it once it had cooled enough."

From Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts (from the Pave recipe)

 
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