Howdy,
I am looking for a white cocoa butter color without that Titanium Dioxide kick to the palate. I currently use the Chef Rubber Alabaster. It seems we've been getting more and more complaints about the off-putting flavor. Any suggestions? We have CLC licencing for our local university's logos, which happen to be Maroon and White, so using the white is a necessary evil. Thank you!
Josh
Josh;
Cocoa butter isn't white. Ever.
Unless you've got a direct line on the red phone to Mother Nature you're going to have to use a colorant.
You might want to look at a different supplier for your whitening agent. It shouldn't have any flavour at all. On top of that good colorant is so concentrated that you have to generally use very little.
Cheers
Brad
Have you tried using white chocolate (assuming you're not making Vegan products)? If airbrushing, you can cut it 50/50 (more or less) with plain cocoa butter to thin it out for spray application. Of course, this solution is for using a transfer sheet (assuming that's the University logo application) with a magnetic mold - you could just make the transfers for the Maroon part and leave the white portions as negative space, which then get sprayed with the white background color to form the white portions. Then, you can use any kind of chocolate to make the shell, so it won't taste like white chocolate. Of course, if you're talking about enrobed chocolates and didn't want the whole piece to be white chocolate, then you'd have to apply the white "background"/portions by spreading or spraying using the white chocolate (not necessarily cut with cocoa butter if you're spreading, not spraying application...your preference) directly onto the transfer sheet. Then you'd cut them to individual units and apply them to dark or milk enrobed pieces as normal. Don't forget that if you're spreading, not spraying, then having the white tempered/pre-crystallized will be (more) necessary, as the act of spraying *supposedly/usually* tempers the cocoa butter. Hope that works for you!
PS - if applying directly to the transfer sheet for later application to enrobed pieces, you'll have to mind the balance of dry-enough vs too-dry before cutting the sheet into individual units.
The product I have the most "titanium dioxide flavor issue" with is a chocolate bar molded in a silicone mold and then sprayed with white cocoa butter color and finished in maroon with a foam stencil brush. TAMU Bar I use the smallest amount of white on the bar to get a solid coat and use a stencil over the lettering. It's the fact that the first thing you taste when you eat the bar is the white pigment sprayed on the outside of the bar that accentuates pigment flavor. It needs to be pure white to get approval by the CLC. We offer a plain chocolate version, but it doesn't sell nearly as well as the color version.
We have a chocolate with a white transfer sheet, but its in such a minimal amount of white, the off flavor isn't an issue. TAMU Chocolates with Transfer Sheets
@Brad, is there a supplier that you would recommend with a flavorless Titanium Dioxide pigment? When I mix my own colors its usually a 20/1 ratio cocoa butter (deodorized) to pigment. I haven't mixed white myself yet. Would this ratio work?
Thanks!
Josh
Josh, I can't answer the questions you asked of me. I have had the occasion to use titanium dioxide for a couple of small special orders and for those I squirted the colorant right into the chocolate until I got the desired color, but as a general rule in my shop we don't use any colorants.
Sorry.
Brad
I completely agree with you about the offputting taste of white cocoa butter. I hate using it but need to if I want some colors (such as red) to show up when applied to dark chocolate shells. I am not sure what constraints you are under to produce a white product, but you might not be satisfied with the ivory tint of white chocolate (even though that is a great possible option, as noted earlier in the thread).
This past weekend I was at a chocolate workshop in Las Vegas and met Kurt Knobel, the owner of Glarus Gourmet, which does business online as chocotransfersheets.com . He makes colored cocoa butters (he used to make the product for a major producer before going out on his own) and seemed genuinely interested in getting customer input and suggestions on his products. You might give him a call (707-748-5658). If you do contact him, it would be very helpful if you posted here and let others (especially me!) know what you find out.
I went ahead and contacted Glarus Gourmet (as mentioned above) and had a reply from Kurt. He says that if I am tasting titanium dioxide in white cocoa butter, I am using too much. The problem is that it takes quite a bit to provide a backing for other colors or to keep dark chocolate from showing through. He is going to send me a sample of his white cocoa butter, and I can post here whether the taste is different from Chef Rubber's. More promisingly, he said there is a white c.b. substitute out there, and he is going to get more information on that. To be continued....
I was about to order a bottle for myself from Glarus. Shipping was $24 :/ I understand the Heat Safe Guarantee is mandatory for transfer sheets but not so much for the colored cocoa butters.
Please let us know about the differences! If you talk to Kurt again soon, please ask him about a cheaper shipping option for the cocoa butter colors.
Thanks!
Josh
