Jacques Torres Answers Chocolatier Questions

Bonjour, I'm Jacques Torres From Jacques Torres Chocolate.

Chocolatier and pastry chef.

I am here today to answer your question from the internet,

the Chocolatier Support.

[upbeat music]

So let's start with the first question.

Royalfreshness6, I love that question. Why does my fat ass

always crave chocolate [lively music]

or some type of sweets after a meal?

My guess is after a good meal,

you are going to crave something a little bit sweet,

something that going to make you feel good.

Again, sugar and fat going to make you feel good,

but chocolate with all these [keyboard clicking]

chemical reactions going to make you feel

even better. [mouse clicking]

So now the next question is SuperGISNerve9000.

How did Switzerland, a landlocked European country

become well known for fine chocolate

when both sugar and cacao are grown far away

in mostly tropical places? [lively music]

First, Switzerland have a lot of cow and a lot of milk,

so it makes sense that Switzerland actually invent

milk chocolate. There was the first one to find a way

to take dark chocolate and add milk to it using dry milk.

Also, Swiss have pretty high standard with taste

and flavor, so they was actually picking

the best cacao beans from Africa, from South America.

So all that make the Swiss very good

at making chocolate. [keyboard clicking]

[mouse clicking] The next question

is from Richie. What's the deal with Dubai chocolate?

I have been seeing it pop up on the menu

at the different places

the past few months. [lively music]

This is funny, but Dubai chocolate is not really

about the chocolate, it's about the pistachio.

It was invented in Dubai by a lady.

She make those first Dubai chocolate, she posts that

into the internet and that go viral.

It's a composition of pistachio, kataifi

which is a shredded phyllo dough and then you can add

white chocolate, mix everything together

and put that into [keyboard clicking]

a chocolate bar. [mouse clicking]

From BabyCakesBakeryyy.

Debate. [lively music]

Is white chocolate real chocolate?

You have to understand that white chocolate

contain cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is about 50%

of what contain a cacao bean.

So 50% of the cacao bean is in the white chocolate

as the cocoa butter. Then addition of milk

and addition of sugar, a little bit of lecithin and vanilla

and you have white chocolate.

If you don't use cocoa butter

and replace this fat by another fat,

then it's not white chocolate.

But if you use cocoa butter, [keyboard clicking]

yes, it is chocolate. [mouse clicking]

Dollhouse. How does chocolate grow in the ground, on vine,

on trees, or on bushes? Chocolate come from a cacao tree.

So the cacao tree is actually a pretty nice size tree

and the cacao pod look a little bit like a papaya

and they don't grow on the thin branches.

They grow on the trunk and the big branches.

So you get a harvest two times a year, spring and fall.

Then when we harvest invest those cacao pod,

we are going to empty them

and inside we have the cacao beans

surrounded with a white pulp, that's going to be fermented

for 3, 4, 5 days and then dried under the sun.

That's how we receive [keyboard clicking]

the cacao beans. [mouse clicking]

So the next question is for KoreanSpaLA,

what is that white stuff on old chocolate?

The chocolate going to go to a process called tempering.

Tempering is aligning the molecular fat in a certain way

so when you put the chocolate into the mold,

those molecular fat going to come together.

The chocolate going to retract, come out of the mold,

but also the texture of the chocolate changed.

The chocolate going to be snappy.

Also, the chocolate going to be shiny,

sometimes if the chocolate is not well tempered,

we don't align those molecular fat together

and we mold the chocolate.

Some of that fat come to the top,

that fat became a little bit too whitish.

The flavor going to be exactly the same.

But because those all those molecular fat are together,

the mouth feel going to be a little bit different,

maybe not as pleasant. Another way to get

white stuff on chocolate is if the chocolate is exposed

to a heat source, then the chocolate un-temper a little bit

and maybe when it re-crystallize the molecular fat on top

going to come a little bit white.

If it's scratchy, it's a sugar bloom.

If it's very smooth, it's a fat bloom. Actually

plain dark chocolate is good [keyboard clicking]

for a couple years at home. [mouse clicking]

So the next question is from Needleworker195.

Why do people who prefer dark chocolate

act like they are so much better

than milk chocolate enjoyers?

It's a little bits snobby. Look, what you love,

it's what is good for you.

My guess is if you eat only dark chocolate, you go directly

to the flavor of the chocolate.

Milk going to put a little barrier to it

and milk chocolate have a tendency

of being a little bit sweeter. I crave milk chocolate

on the afternoon. [keyboard clicking]

I love dark chocolate

on the evening. [mouse clicking]

So the next question is from I_LIKE_YOU_, I like this name.

How important was chocolate to the Inca,

the Mayan, and the Aztec. [lively music]

We have a farm in Yucatan, Mexico where we have a lot

of Mayan ruins and we find a lot of artifacts

about chocolate and we learn that chocolate

was very important in their culture.

That was the food of the God.

Rich people of the time was drinking chocolate

sometimes drink with spices and they was drinking

hot chocolate when they was getting married

because it's an important night

and also when they go to war to get more energy.

So chocolate supposed to have all those power to make you

stronger during your first night after getting married

or going to war. [keyboard clicking]

[mouse clicking] Amazing_Desire.

Why isn't chocolate considered a vegetable

if it come from cacao beans

and all beans are vegetable? [lively music]

I like to tell my kids that chocolate is a vegetable

and they need to eat more of it.

I think it's because we add sugar, we add some cocoa butter.

We are going to add some vanilla.

We're going to add some lecithin into dark chocolate.

So even if chocolate come from a cacao bean,

I don't think it's a vegetable.

I think it's something between, I don't know,

between fruit and candy maybe.

And less sugar, [keyboard clicking]

certainly better your

chocolate's going to be. [mouse clicking]

Veggiemudkipz. I can never get tempering chocolate right.

Any tips? [lively music]

You know what I can show you that now,

you are going to need for tempering chocolate,

a double boiler, a stove, water

and the water need to be just simmering.

You break your chocolate in small pieces

and you melt your chocolate.

Be very careful you don't want any water into the chocolate.

They don't mix very well.

So I already did that and my chocolate is melted.

So we melt the chocolate to about 100 degree,

105, 110 degree maximum. Then you have some chocolate,

already cut it in small pieces. Those molecular fat here

are still together. That's called seeding.

That's going to help all the molecular fat here

to come together. So you take a couple handful

of that chocolate, you put it in here and then you mix it.

So you can go two way.

You can leave that in your kitchen and wait like 15 minutes

and a chocolate going to be soft, almost melting.

If you want to know and be sure

that your chocolate is tempered, take a knife,

dip it into the chocolate

and leave it at room temperature for about a minute.

The chocolate should start to thicken.

So it's been less than a minute, but look,

can you see now if I touch here,

I can see the mark on my finger, but it start hardening.

So if you harden in less than a minute,

chocolate at is tempered, [keyboard clicking]

then you can put it in mold and do whatever

you want with it. [mouse clicking]

So the next question is for PastRaccoon2.

Does putting box of chocolate

in fridge ruin them. [lively music]

Actually you can put chocolate in the refrigerator

but you have to wrap the box of chocolate

into cellophane wrap or put it into a bag.

Why? It is because the refrigerator

going to have some moisture.

You don't want moisture to go into your chocolate.

Also if you have onions next to it, chocolate contained fat,

fat absorb or the flavor.

So that's where the problem is.

Then when you take chocolate out of the refrigerator,

put them on the counter, leave them there

not opening the box or the plastic for a couple hours

because condensation going to go on top of the plastic,

which is water and that water

can make your chocolate turn white.

Then you can open your box [keyboard clicking]

and enjoy your chocolate. [mouse clicking]

HotelChocolat. Do you know where most

of the world's cacao is grown? Cacao grow 20 degree north

and south of the equator all around the world,

but Africa still today are the biggest producer of cacao.

Between 60 and 70% of cacao

will grow in Africa. [keyboard clicking]

This is a lot of chocolate. [mouse clicking]

From Kirikomori. Often I see in media people

making chocolate for others as a gift.

How exactly is this made? [lively music]

You can buy some chocolate, melt it,

and do something with it. You can mold it into a mold,

you can make little bonbons, you can deep fruits in it

and then you put that in bag [keyboard clicking]

and give it away.

It's a nice gift. [mouse clicking]

Okay, so what can we do with temper chocolate?

So this is a polycarbonate mold.

You can buy some plastic mold.

They will walk about the same. They're not durable.

This is very durable. Then you're going to need a rack.

I'm going to take a ladle

and I'm going to take my temper chocolate

and put it inside the mold here.

Okay, almost done. You see how fast it is? One more time.

Voila. So then I'm going to take an offset spatula,

tap, tap the side of the mold to chase any air bubble

that gets stuck into my mold

and then I'm going to scrape the mold.

So I take the excess of the chocolate out

and now in order to create shells,

I'm going to reverse the mold and put the excess

and scrape my mold again.

You can see now that I have little shell,

the same done here, but I need to put it this way

so the chocolate going to go around the mold

and create those little shell.

So that will take few minutes to set.

But look, what's interesting is that they will just un-mold.

So that's very good because the chocolate is temper.

When it's temper it come out of the mold very easily,

it retract and come out of the mold.

If it's not temper, it'll not come out.

When you're done with that,

you can fill those little shell with whatever you like.

So imagine that you have guests at home.

You can put a little whipped cream as an example

and a raspberry on top

and you have a little desserts like that.

You can put that on your table. That's one way of doing it.

What we do here at the chocolate factory,

I use some praline, praline is a mixture of caramels.

Then now you can use 200 grams of hazelnuts, stir.

Then when it's cold, put it on the blender

and then you get this type of cream.

Then you can add 20% milk chocolate to it

and you have the filling of your chocolate.

This is a piping bag.

I'm going to take the praline into the piping bag.

So when you use a piping bag, put your hands here and turn.

So this way nothing going to come that way again.

The mixture will come out of the top.

Scissors and then you can start filling your mold

and then when you're used to it, this is the real speed.

Viola. That's called showing off.

Now we are going to put this mold

into a cooler place in order to have the mixture

coming a little bit harder and I'm going to close that.

I put my chocolate about 10 minutes into the refrigerator.

The addition of milk chocolate come hard now.

So now it's time to close those chocolate.

So I'm going to use the same chocolate than before

and then I'm going to put that on top

and then I'm going to push the chocolate around

just to be sure that I'm closing all those cavity.

I'm going to use that scraper to scrape the top here,

make it very clean. Then now my guess is I can un-mold them.

So I'm going to show you how we do that.

Just take the mold, reverse it,

[mold thudding] tap it.

And the chocolate come out

and this is the finished chocolate.

I recommend that, this is delicious.

The next question is from idrwierd.

How does geography affect

the flavor of chocolate? [lively music]

Think about wine, why wine is different in Burgundy

than in the south of France.

As an example is the terroir and also the weather.

And by terroir I mean the ground.

The ground where the grapes going to grow,

or the ground where the cacao tree going to grow,

going to change the flavor of your chocolate.

If you go to Madagascar,

if you go to South America or Africa,

the trees that we plant, all that going to be

that the chocolate is going to have a different flavor.

As an example in South America,

you're going to find some very flavorful, whimsical,

taste of chocolate.

So it really depend where you go and also how you ferment

and how you're going to process your chocolate.

Everything is important [keyboard clicking]

like making wine. [mouse clicking]

Reputable_Sorcerer is the next question.

US-based chocolate lovers, [lively music]

are you stocking up due to tariff?

The high price of chocolate at lately

is not due to the tariff.

It's actually due to not enough chocolate in the world

due to higher temperature in Africa.

More rain, not enough rain, disease,

we miss about 40% of cacao in the world.

This is why cacao is [keyboard clicking]

a little bit more expensive. [mouse clicking]

Aranea101, how to make chocolate less prone to melt?

If chocolate is real chocolate

and contain what we call cocoa butter, it will melt.

There's nothing we can do about it.

Now, milk chocolate is going to melt even faster.

So my guess is if you have a hot apartment,

maybe you wrap your chocolate, put it into the refrigerator

or in a cooler place,

those refrigerator for wine work very well

and they're not as cold as a refrigerator.

If chocolate melt, that means [keyboard clicking]

it's real chocolate. [mouse clicking]

Sharayray is the next question.

What is the oddest pairing that you have tried

that actually work with chocolate?

Any recipes? [lively music]

Oddest pairing with chocolate is actually spices,

ancho and Chipotle chili,

it work beautifully. [keyboard clicking]

Just don't put too much of it. [mouse clicking]

From hello__x__. How did chocolate become

an Easter thing? [lively music]

Person say, I ask while eating chocolate.

Easter come at spring, and what is spring?

Spring is renewing, spring is birth.

This is why especially in Europe when it's Easter time,

you find a lot of chocolate egg. So this is why you will

find chocolate for Easter [keyboard clicking]

and especially Easter eggs. [mouse clicking]

The next question is from caaass98x2,

why milk chocolate doesn't expire for ages,

but milk expire in a couple days.

The milk into your chocolate is dry milk.

What make the milk spoiled is actually the water content

into the milk. Now if you remove all that water

and you have dry milk, [keyboard clicking]

it don't going to spoil very fast.

You have few months. [mouse clicking]

So the next question is from Kimchilada.

Is this a potential threat of chocolate going extinct

by 2050 going to be the event [lively music]

that finally bring world together?

It's a lot of rumor about that

and I don't think that chocolate going to go extinct,

but there is more and more challenge growing cacao,

global warming sometime too much rain, sometime not enough.

Then we have development of different fungus

and disease into the cacao tree.

When that happen, you have to burn the tree.

A tree take three to five years to mature and to get cacao.

This is why lake chocolate is so expensive,

but scientists are working on finding different way

of making trees that are going to support

a little bit more heat or maybe planting the tree

in different places. Another problem is farmer,

until now did not make enough money

so they stop growing cacao.

But lately chocolate is at about two

and a half time the price of two years ago.

So because it's more expensive,

it's because we have less cacao, but farmer get more money.

So I don't think [keyboard clicking]

that cacao will be extinct. [mouse clicking]

Might be a little bit more expensive.

A Quora user asked, [lively music]

how does a chocolate factory work?

You know what? I am in my factory.

Come with me. [keyboard clicking]

I'm going to show you

all my secrets. [mouse clicking]

This beautiful machine behind me is called a roaster.

So we'll take the cacao beans or the almonds,

put 'em on top, we are going to roast them,

and then when they're roasted,

they're going to go into this machine to cool them down.

Then we have piece of equipment here

to make the chocolate from scratch.

This is called a winnower.

That's where we put the cacao beans on that side.

The cacao beans going come this way, cracked.

The nibs going to come on that side.

The shell going to fall on the other side

and then we will put the nibs inside

the McIntyre and the McIntyre going to ground everything

and conch the chocolate. This is how we make chocolate.

That's the machine that help us making chocolate 500 kilo

or 1,100 pound at a time? This is the warm room.

Why? Is because we have melted chocolate in this room.

We have big melter, five ton melter, one ton melter.

The chocolate is pushed through a pump

and from the pump into the ceiling into those wide pipes

and in different station we can open a valve

and the chocolate it will flow into a machine

or you can take a chocolate shower.

This is called a pan coating machine. Pan coating machine,

imagine that you take almonds

and you put a couple hundred ton of almonds in there,

spin it. So now the almonds are tumbling

and it's kind of a rain of chocolate

on top of those almonds.

The almond's going to get enrolled with chocolate,

but because the movement and the cold air,

they don't going to stick together.

They keep rolling like that and it's called grossing.

So we gross the almonds that they become bigger.

When we have as much chocolate than almonds.

We stop it and they're ready to be eaten.

I keep talking about the center of the chocolate

or the filling, this is where we mix our filling.

We actually put the chocolate, the cream, the alcohol,

the foods, close the machine, and we vacuum the air out.

No air means less oxidation, longer shelf life.

So we don't put chemical to have a longer shelf life.

We do it mechanically. This is the ganache room.

So we will put here those big aluminum trays all the way

and back and we put some rulers around them

with a piece of paper on the bottom

and then we are going to pour the filling of the chocolate,

so the feeling of the chocolate

going to go on top of the ruler,

make them flat, let them cool down.

Next day we use a machine called a guitar

that going to cut those little chocolate into square

and then we put those little fillings square

into the enrobing line and the enrobing line

going to unrobe those chocolate.

This is an enrobing line. I love this machine.

Imagine that we take pretzels

or even the filling of a chocolate.

They go on the belt here

and you can see under the chocolate it's come out

as a waterfall. So the chocolate going to come here,

get covered, top and bottom.

Then from there it'll go under a fan,

then from the fan into a vibrating belt

and from the vibrating belt into a refrigerator,

that's a cooling tunnel.

Okay, so when the chocolate come out

of the enrobing line, then they're going to go into a belt

and the belt is basically a refrigerator

and the chocolate end up in packaging.

Okay, that's all the question that I have for today.

I hope that you learn something.

Thank you for watching [lively music]

Chocolatier Support.

[graphics whooshing] [gentle music]