Real Milk, Milk Chocolate

Does anybody have any idea how you might make a milk chocolate using real milk, maybe even just evaporated milk? We've never been overly impressed with the recipes we've found online using powdered milk. Cadbury, in the UK, makes a superior milk chocolate that it is hard to stop eating. As a matter of fact, many places in the UK make superior milk chocolate. In the US, Cadbury chocolate is made by Hershey's, and it is not UK quality. You can by tasting, or by reading the ingredient label.

Cadbury UK Milk Chocolate

Ingredients: Full Cream Milk, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Milk Solids, Emulsifiers (Soy Lecithin, 476), Flavours.

"A glass and a half of milk in every half pound bar of chocolate"

Cadbury/Hershey's US Milk Chocolate

I do understand, and have heard, that getting liquid into chocolate means you cannot make it set/mold in solid form. I don't know if that's just water if it applies to any liquid.

Has anyone here ever used real milk, or canned milk, to make milk chocolate? Any tips on this?

hi i am rahman i like to send my indian cocoa single yard 70% dark chocolate to taste and give me a feed back the experts in chocolate tasting kindly guide me

Hi Rahman,

If you have some way to send it to us, I'd be glad to try it. How much can you send? With a 5 lbs, I can make a very small batch of dark.

OK, self answer after having tried an experiment this morning that I do not think will turn out well, super-saturate sugar into evaporated milk before adding it to the chocolate, maybe after heating milk and sugar to 230'ish. I read that Cadbury at least partially caramelizes their sugar before making chocolate, so I think this is one of the factors. I do make caramel fillings for our chocolate using evaporated milk and sugar.

I was thinking maybe my wet grinder would drive off the excess moisture from the milk, which I've seen happen with humid cocoa nibs. It might be too much to hope for from a whole can of evaporated milk. When I first poured it into the chocolate liqueur, it seized up and I had to stop the machine. I've made that mistake before making chocolate syrup, the solid cocoa absorbs the moisture and turns into a thick paste.

Going to try super saturation next, but will try to salvage the current mess first...or fatten up our pig. :)

Ok, what you're talking about here is something called milk crumb.  It's a very difficult process, and there's a lot of trade secret info around it.

Obviously when you start with fluid milk, you've got a scenario where there's a lot of water, and oil (cocoa butter) and water don't mix.  You need a way to get rid of the moisture in the fluid milk.  That process almost always involves a vacuum and heat.  Starting with sweetened condensed milk is often preferred because there's high solids (less moisture), and higher sugares, which caramalize during the process.  You'll need to get your moisture down to single digit %'s.  Because you're working with a fluid dairy product, many countries will have stricter requirements as a result - the fluid dairy industry is highly regulated for safety reasons - there's an aweful lot that can go wrong microbiologically if you don't get it right.

I'd absolutely, unequiviocally not recommend this approach as a do it your selfer.  Rather, there's a series of manufacturers who produce crumb for resale.  All of them use different process and thus achieve different results.  You could try Fazer in Finland.  Cargill in the US  may be willing to sell some of the crumb they make in Canada, and Fonterra has a line of co-spray dried milk powders/fructose that is crumblike in flavor in one of their New Zealand facilities.

Thanks!

Milk crumb, that's a term you don't hear too often, never, in my case. That's a whole new variable. Will look into it.

And yes, despite my best efforts, it looks like my wet grinder has 8 lbs of ganache in it. :-(

Many thanks for the new insight!

Take very good care to thoroughly clean that grinder out, and sanitize it.  remember you've put fluid milk into an environment with LOTS of holes, crevices, and cracks - and lots of food (sugar, protein) for bacteria to eat.  Would hate to see you have a microbiological nightmare on your hands.

I do have a little update on my first experiment. After checking on the grinder for the fourth time last night, I started messing with the fastening nut and ended up seizing up the grinder. I removed some of the mixture, tried again, did this a few times until it started spinning again. While watching and waiting for more stops, I decided to use my old, modified grinder, with the lid that has some air ports in it. I put some of the mixture in that one.

This morning the grinder without air circulation had ganache and cocoa butter, separated. The other grinder with air ports had an integrated mixture. I think it was able to evaporate the excess moisture. I was able to temper the mixture and just shared some of the results with family. The chocolate was better than powdered milk, milk chocolate, but still a little darker than people are used to. Right now I am using the air flow grinder to pound out another batch, but with more milk.

I read about crumb, also read some patents on how it is made. As you stated, it is usually made with a vacuum type evaporator. On my second experiment, I made some condensed milk, got the temp up to 115C, added some cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and it's in the grinder now.

My strong advice would be to not continue on this path for safety reasons.

I will second that suggestion.

I'll 'third' Sebastian's suggestion not to formulate using liquid milk even in 'condensed form'!  As he states there's a high risk of microbial issues.

It's a good way to get folks sick given the near impossible set up for 'in place' sanitation of the equipment you are apparently using.   I hope and assume you're not planning on selling this 'product'?

p.s.  I haven't seen the Glass and a half in every bar of Dairy Milk tag line used for years.... I thought Cadbury's UK had dropped way back it as it isn't technically true....The UK trade descriptions Act require truefully accurate language, they use proprietary Milk solids (Milk crumb) as most of the big boys do.

Please don't take offence, but the old saying " A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" comes to mind here

MJ

hi guys can anyone tell me where i can get training on bean to bar chocolate making

Hi Rahman,

In case you don't already know, here are two sites that have lots of information about making chocolate:

http://www.chocolatealchemy.com (lots of helpful info in the forums)

http://www.bean-to-bar.co.uk/

There is an online chocolate makers program by http://www.ecolechocolat.com/en/chocolate-making-from-bean.html for $455 US. I do not know anyone who has taken the program.

There was also a bean to bar class here: https://www.jmauboinechocolates.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=10 earlier this year. I believe it was a theee day class.

- Thomas

thanks  thomas for your kindly reply