Forum Activity for @lagusta yearwood

Hello Eileen!

We make a version of what you're making that we use for fillings and things. You can't really use it as a "ganache" without adding so much cocoa butter that it tastes terrible, or so much sugar that it's way too sweet, but it works as a thin piped filling. Instead of coconut sugar we use a vegan powdered sugar and whip it all up in the food processor with lots of vanilla. It's nice. I definitely wouldn't use gelatin to the mixture, because that would make it not vegan, but you could experiment with agar-agar, which is a vegan gelatin derived from sea vegetables.

Hello! How nice to meet another vegan organic chocolate company!

And what a bizarre experience with the Callebaut rice milk chocolate, wow. I'll look out for it, even though it sounds rather odd. I'm now working with Cacao Prieto, in Brooklyn, to make us some white chocolate--exciting! I'll follow up when I've tried it.

Fascinating discussion! I like the idea of lucuma white chocolate...

Thanks, I'll look into them. To my palate, soy is not my favorite milk...and many of my customers are looking for soy-free chocolates. But if they taste good, that's what matters!

Lovely! Will do right now.

Yeah, the baker in our shop did a bunch of research on sugar a while ago, and she says all organic sugar is vegan, so that's nice!

Well that definitely happensparticularly with "raw" and "organic." As someone who truly does use organic chocolate (it's my understanding that most cacao plantations don't really use pesticides anyway, so I'm not sure how helpful the designation is, but it's important to our market, so we do buy organic), and pays through the nose for it, it's awful for me when other companies use it recklessly. Ugh.

"Raw" though--that designation can just go away, as far as I'm concerned. Who decided raw chocolate is a good thing? God, it's awful. We're always trying to educate people about it, since we get a bunch of health-foodie types in our shop who equate raw with less sugar and healthfulness and somehow think our chocolate is evil because it's not raw. Ah, fads!

Ha! Thanks for the gotcha question. Of course we know that! I've had long talks with TCHO, and their sugar is most definitely vegan. In our shop we use Wholesome Sweeteners sugar, which has a lot on their site about how it's vegan. It's always so funny to me when nonvegans try to trick vegans. We're all trying to do our best, remember. : )

Wow, sounds like you've got a good thing going on!

For our white chocolate, we blend cocoa butter, scalded coconut milk, powdered sugar, lots of vanilla ex and vanilla bean, and a little saltit's not temperable, but we use it as a filling, so that's OK. It's pretty nice, but "real" vegan white chocolate would be nicer, that's for sure.

Aww, thanks! Vegan ganache is not tough at all! Ours is a classical ganache recipe, but with full-fat coconut milk and coconut oil--if you use the deodorized kind, I promise you you won't be able to taste the coconut flavorparticularly if you flavor the ganache, but even with our plain flavor no one could detect coconut. Now, what was tricky for us was caramel and toffee recipes! The tough thing with coconut oil is using less of it than you would buttersince it's all fat and butter is only about 80% fat (I think?), you need to use less otherwise your stuff will get oily. It's a process of trial and error, like everything, I suppose.

I am still marveling about the tofu in that formulation. It really didn't have such a bad snap, is the weird thing. We try so hard to live down the 1970's lentil loaf-esque perception of veganism that we use almost no soy and I'd sort of cringe having "tofu" on our labels. Sigh.

Do you have a shop? I'd love to see your stuff!

Yeah...really not a fan of theirs, which is sad because it's also made near me, in Upstate NY, and their cashew ice creams are nice. Their white chocolate isn't temperable, I don't think, but Charm School says theirs are. I'm wary of theirs because the second ingredient is....TOFU!! Which weirds me out.

Yes, will definitely let you know if I find anything!

Yeah, that seems about right, thanks for the info. I have been looking into Charm School Chocolates vegan white chocolate, but the flavor doesn't exactly thrill me, and it's cost prohibitive. Here's to hoping someone fills this hole in the market sometime soon!

Hello chocophiles!

I've been lurking for a year or so, I'm so excited to finally say hello. I have a tiny little chocolate shop in New Paltz, about 80 miles from NYC. Everything we do is organic, fair-trade, and vegan. We primarily use TCHO couverture, their organic and f/t lines.