Food: Science Picture Challenge #2: Chocolate 科學照片挑戰 #2: 巧克力

Sciencepic x kitchen chemistry: Seized Chocolate

Kiddo- lemon nutella gelato/pie crust/ milk chocolate semifreddo/oreo crumbs/ nutella fudge

If you follow me, you probably know that I am a dessert lover. I love both making and eating desserts, and chocolate is one of my favorite. I always use chocolate as one of the ingredients when I am making desserts. But have you ever melted chocolate not so properly and it starts getting lumpy?

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When chocolate melts, it is ideally a beautifully smooth and silky mixture. However, there are a number of things that can turn your melted chocolate into a clumpy mess. And one of them is moisture. If chocolate comes into contact with even a small amount of water, it will seized up and become a lumpy, grainy mess in the bowl. It's definitely one of the biggest frustration in baking.

The second #sciencepic challenge held by @mcw just begin and theme of this round is FOOD ! With this opportunity, I would like to share the the science behind chocolate with you today~

Why Does Chocolate Seize?

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Chocolate is a mixture of fat (from cocoa butter) and dry particles (cocoa and sugar). The process of making cocoa beans into chocolate takes out all of the moisture, so chocolate is virtually free of water made of with cocoa butter (fat), cocoa and sugar (dry).

If you add water into the melted chocolate, the water loving dry sugar particles inside the chocolate will become moist and cling together giving us a lumpy texture. Since sugar is a major ingredient in chocolate, it all goes grainy. That means adding water to chocolate is similar to adding water to flour.

How to Fix Seized Chocolate?

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You may ask is there any way for fixing seized chocolate? The Answer is : YES!

Solution: Add 1 tps of boiling water or heated cream at a time over a double boiler until the mixture smooth out.

If the chocolate has seized, there is really no way back to the original chocolate. This solution can make your chocolate liquid again but it also dilute it slightly. You can use the fixed chocolate to make brownies, chocolate cookies or chocolate sauce for your sundae.

I know it sounds pretty crazy as moisture is the cause of the chocolate seized up but the solution is also using moisture. But trust me, it really works. So please don't throw away your chocolate if it is seized.

Hope you enjoy today's sharing. 💗

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Sciencepic x廚房科學：結塊巧克力

如果你有看我之前分享的文章，應該不難發現我是一位甜品愛好者，我喜歡製作和吃各式各樣的甜品，巧克力當然也不例外，是我很喜歡的一種零食，我也很喜歡製作有關巧克力的甜品，心太軟，特濃巧克力蛋糕，甚至我吃草莓也喜歡沾著巧克力吃。如果你有用巧克力製作甜品，相信會知道「巧克力不能碰水」這個常識。

加熱成功的巧克力有很美的絲狀光澤，但有两大因素會令你融化的巧克力變成結塊，分别是火與水。

1. 如果你直接加熱巧克力到超過60℃，巧克力就會燒焦。
2. 如果巧克力融化過程中碰到水，或是在調溫時有蒸氣，巧克力就會收縮，形成有顆粒的麵糊狀。

那到底巧克力為什麼會遇水便結塊？會不會有什麼方法可以修復呢？

藉著參加@mcw 舉辦的第二場#sciencepic 挑戰，今天想跟大家分享巧克力碰水結塊的背後的化學！

巧克力為什麼碰水會結塊？

巧克力的成分主要是脂肪（來自可可脂）和乾燥顆粒（可可粉和糖）組成。在可可豆製成巧克力的過程中，巧克力大部分水分都被排除掉，因此巧克力內含的水分非常稀少，是固態與油脂的融合體，固態物質與油脂呈微小的分子狀態均勻散佈於巧克力。

當把水加到巧克力中，巧克力中的乾燥顆粒會吸收水分凝結，破壞原本的油脂平衡的和諧融合狀態，令巧克力中的油脂分離，移位，在移動過程中油分子會和相遇的同類分子結合成更大的分子，形成我們所看到的油脂結構，這種結構變化令巧克力原有的質地被徹底破壞，變得粗糙。

如何拯救「油水分離」的窘境

你可能會問有沒有辦法可以拯救已經「油水分離」的巧克力？答案當然是：有！

解決方案：隔水利用蒸汽加熱（Double Boiler），利用兩個鍋子重疊，下鍋放水加熱，上鍋放入分離的巧克力，架在上頭利用下鍋的蒸汽來加熱，每次加入一茶匙的温水或熱奶油，其間不停攪拌，然後你會看到原本結塊的巧克力又變回光澤狀態。

如果巧克力已經「油水分離」，要還原到原來的巧克力一樣的狀態是不可能的。這種解決方案可以使您的巧克力重新變得光滑，但也稀釋了一點。如果用來做布朗尼，曲奇餅，基本上是沒有問題的。

我知道這聽起來很瘋狂，因為水分是巧克力結塊的原因，但解決方案也是使用水分。但相信我，它確實很有效，如果下次你的巧克力結塊了，就不用把它丟棄了！

希望你享受今天的分享。 💗

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