MENU

Chocolate Category Main Page Articles & Reviews       Main Nibbles Main Page Articles & Reviews Of Foods From A To Z       Product Reviews Main Page Food, Beverages, Books, News & More

October 2006

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Chocolate

Understanding Couverture Chocolate

Great Couverture Equals Great Chocolate

Overview

Couverture (French for coating or covering) chocolate is the basis of all chocolate, as grapes are the basis of wine. It is professional-quality chocolate that is used for tempering and making bonbons, truffles and chocolate bars, or enrobing other confections (chocolate-covered pretzels and marshmallows, e.g.). If you are a serious student of chocolate and want to understand why you prefer one brand over another, you need to learn your couvertures—and the companies that make them.

Couverture chocolate is made with better beans. It is ground to a finer particle size and has a higher cocoa butter content than most chocolate bars for eating†. These two latter qualities enable it to be used for delicate work—for example, to be molded into delicate designs. Otherwise, it contains the same ingredients as eating chocolate:

• Cacao
• Sugar
• Cocoa butter
• Milk powder (if milk chocolate)
• Soya Lecithin, an emulsifier for smoothness
• Vanilla

†Fine chocolatiers, of course, make their chocolate bars from the same quality couverture.

Couverture won’t be confused for a candy bar: it is made in kilo (2.2 pound) to 10 pound bars or blocks. Some companies make smaller bars and “wafers,” discs smaller than a quarter, for the home baker and chocolatier.

Where It Comes From

While there are many thousands of chocolatiers in the world—from large companies like Godiva to the local artisan who makes chocolates in your town, couverture is made by perhaps less than 50 companies in Europe and the U.S.  That’s because it requires a complex network of agents to scout and buy beans, and factories to roast and process them into the blocks of couverture. As a result, most chocolatiers—companies that make chocolate products for consumers—and pastry chefs buy their couverture from one of the couverture manufacturers. They can buy from the regular line, or request custom blends.

There are numerous others that do not currently sell their products in the U.S., e.g. Bernachon, Chocolaterie de L’Opera and Corné de la Toison d’Or (France), Haigh’s Chocolates (Australia) and Ludwig Weinrich (Germany).

Most of the couverture manufacturers sell to chocolatiers that do not make their own couverture (like Godiva) and to smaller chocolatiers and pastry chefs. However, they also make their own chocolate products for consumers.

• Some couverture manufacturers are small and produce only for their own use, e.g. Jacques Torres and Pierre Marcolini.
• Some companies make only chocolate bars, while others have a full range of products from bonbons, chocolate sauces and novelties to drinking chocolates.
• There are other companies that make fine couverture only for wholesale clients —Belcolade and OCG [owned by Cargill] (Belgium), Mercken [owned by Archer Daniels Midland] (U.S.), ICAM (Italy) and Omehene (Ghana) e.g. But they do not make consumer products, so their names are not generally known outside of the trade.
• And, there are companies that produce couverture for the middle of the market chocolate, confection and pastry makers, like Blommer and Wilbur, as well as for the mass market. We have only addressed the premier producers.

How Couverture Is Different From Eating Chocolate

Couverture is tempered so that it will form a thin, smooth, shiny coating on hand-dipped candies. The extra cocoa butter, generally 36% to 39%, makes it easier to work with, allows for a thinner shell coating and gives it a different texture and consistency than non-couverture chocolate, i.e. chocolate bars. (Bars for eating can be 25% to 33% cocoa butter, depending on the quality of the bar.)

Can you eat couverture? Of course! Some people might even prefer it because of the extra cocoa butter, which creates a creamer mouthfeel. One of the highlights of trade shows for us is digging into the huge block of white Chocovic—one of the best white chocolates we have ever tasted, and not available for purchase as a consumer product.

Choosing Couvertures

Each chocolatier decides which brand of couverture to use, depending on his or her personal tastes. Some use more than one brand and/or different blends of beans, origin cacao or percentages of cacao within a brand, based on their feeling that specific couvertures pair better with particular items. For example, even within semisweet chocolate, one couverture might taste better with nuts; another with fruits, fruit cremes and peel; another with caramels and toffee; and yet another with plain bars and ganaches.

Guittard, one of our favorite American couvertures.

For example, at these different descriptions of Felchlin couvertures will have you matching them to different kinds of chocolates and truffles:

• Felchlin Maracaibo Creole 49% Cacao (Criollo beans from Sur del Lago, Maracaibo, Venezuela.) A 49% cacao is the most intense level of milk chocolate; 50% is the demarcation line for semisweet.† Details: Aromatic and fruity, a creamy taste combined with a delicate cream-caramel note. A sense of a light vanilla-bourbon aroma with a hint of honey, and a fresh, fruity raspberry finish.
  †There is a new category of milk chocolate that has a higher than normal percentage of cacao, which gives these chocolates the deep flavor of a semisweet bar with the extra milkiness of a milk chocolate bar. Slitti, an Italian producer, makes a magnificent line called Lattenero (“milk-dark”) in 45%, 51%, 62% and 70% cacao. The 70% bar looks as dark as any 70% bittersweet bar, but contains milk and has the milky flavor and smoothness, without the sugary sweetness. It is 70% cacao, 30% sugar; whereas the 45% bar is a more traditional milk chocolate recipe with more sugar than cacao: 45% cacao, 55% sugar.
• Felchlin Madagascar 64% Cacao (Trinitario beans from Sambirano, Madagascar). Well-balanced, fruity cocoa is entwined with a mild aroma of roasted hazelnuts and with a fresh note of wild berries. On the palate, a subtle citrus enhanced with a hint of clove and cedar, leading to a long finish.
• Felchlin Maracaibo Clasificado 65% Cacao (Criollo beans from Sur del Lago, Maracaibo, Venezuela.). The well-balanced combination of aromatic coffee and plum aroma enhances the distinct cocoa flavor. The flavors yield hints of orange blossom and cinnamon, enhanced with a light sweet raisin bouquet leading to a long finish.
• Felchlin Arriba 72% Cacao (Nacional [a.k.a. Arriba] beans from Arriba Mocache, Los Rios, Ecuador). The cocoa taste is enhanced by the intensive coffee and licorice aroma. Full-bodied and well-balanced, intensive dried prune bouquet with with a delicate trace of spice, slightly bitter, leading to a long finish with a light, flowery black-currant note.

Most fine couverture producers offer a variety of origin chocolate, as well as house blends in different percentages of cacao from milk to semisweet to bittersweet.

• Brands popular among U.S. chocolatiers include Callebaut, El Rey, Guittard and Valrhona. Callebaut and Guittard chocolate is certified kosher (as is Scharffen Berger), so chocolatiers who want to make the finest kosher chocolate generally choose one of these brands.
• Some chocolatiers use the manufacturer’s straight product, others might blend different blocks of couverture to get their desired result. Still others might have the chocolate manufacturer blend a special “recipe” according to the chocolatier’s own specifications (e.g., more cocoa butter for a smoother mouthfeel, more Venezuelan beans in the mix for a fruitier chocolate).

How To Determine Your “Flavor Profile”

To understand your flavor preferences, ask chocolatiers which couverture they use: it gives the chocolates their defining taste, regardless of fillings. By understanding, e.g., that you like Couverture A but don’t like Couverture B as much, you will understand your preferred flavor profile. (It’s like knowing that you like the fruitier style of many California Pinot Noirs better than the more balanced style of many Oregon Pinot Noirs.) 

Most chocolatiers don’t make a secret of the brand of couverture they use—they’re proud of their choice(s) and want you to be an educated consumer. And, knowing your preferences lets you make more informed choices the next time you purchase chocolate. If you know you enjoy chocolate made with Guittard couverture, e.g., the next time you see a Guittard chocolate bar, you might stop to buy it. Or, the next time you encounter a new chocolatier and find that he or she uses Guittard couverture, you know you have a good chance of really enjoying those chocolates. 

Each chocolatier decides which brand of couverture to use, depending on his or her personal tastes. Some use more than one brand and/or different blends of beans, origin cacao or percentages of cacao within a brand, based on their feeling that specific couvertures pair better with particular items. For example, even within semisweet chocolate, one couverture might taste better with nuts; another with fruits, fruit cremes and peel; another with caramels and toffee; and yet another with plain bars and ganaches.

Scharffen Berger, an artisan chocolatier purchased by Hershey’s in 2005, has been growing in leaps and bounds in popularity.

NOTE: Even if you don’t like a particular couverture in eating chocolate, it will probably be splendid in baked goods and ice cream, where the flavor is nowhere as intense as biting into a chunk of it. One brand that has flavor notes that we don’t enjoy in eating chocolate is one of our top choices for baking and for making ice cream.

For an overview on some of the great chocolate producers in the world, read our article, “House Tour: The World’s Great Chocolate Houses.”

© Copyright 2005-2008 Lifestyle Direct, Inc.  All rights reserved.  Images are the copyright of their respective owners.