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Chocolate!Learn all about our unsweetened cooking chocolate – “The Tava Bar”To the best of our knowledge, The Tava Bar is a truly unique chocolate product. Most small chocolate manufacturers concentrate on either quality and flavour, or social and environmental issues. We refuse to compromise on either aspect. Read on for much more information, and recipes …
RECIPES – click to see what people are cooking with our chocolate:
The Tava Bar is a brand new, Australian-made, unsweetened cooking chocolate. Our chocolate is made here in Kandos (NSW) with a great deal of care, using small batches of cocoa beans that were grown organically in Vanuatu. We think that The Tava Bar represents a rare triumph of substance over style. Our chocolate certainly isn’t about to win any beauty pageants or marketing awards – but it is bursting with flavour, free of nasty chemicals and known allergens, and manufactured with care for the environment. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:Some general information about our chocolate
Social equity
Environmental sustainability
Some general information about our chocolateWhat makes The Tava Bar a cooking chocolate rather than an eating chocolate?
Most people adore three things about chocolate:
Also, because our chocolate is not tempered, it typically gets “fat bloom” (see the next point below for more information about fat bloom). While fat bloom won’t affect your recipes, it does affect the chocolate’s appearance and mouthfeel. Fat bloomed chocolate often feels chalky and/or greasy in your mouth. Fat bloom ceases to be a problem when the chocolate is melted down and combined with other ingredients – hence, our chocolate is designed for cooking with, not eating straight. What exactly is fat bloom, and what is tempering?
The Tava Bar is untempered, and is therefore likely to show signs of fat bloom. Fat bloom produces a pale greyish film, or grease spots, on the surface of the chocolate.
Fat bloom in untempered cooking chocolate is not a flaw, and it will not affect your recipe in any way.
Fat bloom is caused when environmental temperature fluctuations cause some of the cocoa butter in the chocolate to melt. The melted cocoa butter separates from the cocoa mass, creating a pale “bloom” on the chocolate’s surface.
Tempering is the process of precisely heating and cooling melted chocolate to specific temperatures prior to moulding, in order to create the most stable form of fat crystals, which are known as beta crystals. Beta crystals melt at a relatively high temperature (just below body temperature). Hence, tempered chocolate is characteristically shiny and hard, and relatively resistant to fat bloom.
Because cooking chocolate is designed to be melted during cooking, tempering serves no practical purpose, so we decided to leave this process out and pass the savings on to you. What are cocoa solids?
“Cocoa solids” is a term used in the food industry to describe the edible portion of the cocoa bean. The edible portion of a cocoa bean (the “flesh” of the bean) consists of roughly 50% fat (called cocoa butter), and 50% cocoa mass (cocoa mass is the brown stuff that gives chocolate its characteristic flavour).
Cocoa fat (more commonly called cocoa butter) is solid at room temperature – hence its inclusion in the category of cocoa solids. What is single-origin chocolate?
The meaning and significance of a chocolate’s origin has shifted significantly in recent years. In the past, you would have heard of Swiss chocolate, or Belgian chocolate; Switzerland and Belgium being where fine chocolate was manufactured.
Now, attention has started to shift towards where chocolate’s vital ingredient – cocoa – is grown. Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) is an equatorial crop, grown predominantly in West Africa, Central and South America, and Asia. The quality and flavour of cocoa beans is influenced by many factors, but most notably the variety of cocoa, and the methods used to ferment and dry the harvested beans (for more information on cocoa fermentation and drying, take a look at my article: From Bud to Bean).
So, a single-origin chocolate is one made of cocoa beans that were grown in one specific place. The origin may be as broad as a country, or as narrow as a particular plantation.
The Tava Bar is a single-origin chocolate, made from cocoa grown on the island of Malekula in Vanuatu. Which is better: a single-origin chocolate, or a blended chocolate?
The answer to this question depends entirely on personal taste – but I’m happy to share my opinion with you!
Most people have only ever tasted blended chocolate, which, by definition, is made from a blend of cocoa beans grown in many different countries. For example, Cadbury, Lindt, and Haigh’s all produce blended chocolates. When it comes to flavour, these manufacturers value uniformity above character.
Flavour uniformity is enormously valuable to many food retailers – think McDonald’s, or Coca Cola. By contrast, nuanced and characterful flavour profiles are highly prized in the wine industry – think Penfolds Grange.
It is only quite recently that a small percentage of discerning and somewhat adventurous consumers have begun to appreciate the complex and unique flavours that can be found in single-origin chocolate. Blending different cocoas together is the most obvious technique for achieving flavour uniformity in chocolate. Alkalisation is another, less well known technique, used by many large chocolate manufacturers to help produce a uniform flavour.
Alkalisation is the process of adding an alkali, such as potassium bicarbonate, to cocoa in order to reduce its acidity. While alkalisation certainly makes the product less acidic, and therefore less challenging to most people’s taste buds, it also destroys many interesting flavours that are commonly described as being like red fruit or citrus. Ironically, alkalisation also causes cocoa to darken considerably, which tricks most people into believing that alkalised cocoa is stronger flavoured, or higher quality. If you’ve ever seen an incredibly rich-looking, almost black cocoa powder or chocolate cake, it was probably alkalised!
So, while blending and alkalising cocoa greatly reduces the risk of producing an unpleasant chocolate (especially when poor quality cocoa beans are used), these processes also reduce the likelihood of creating an interesting, complex, and characterful chocolate. How do I convert my favourite recipe to use The Tava Bar?
Try our recipe conversion calculator!
If you would like to try using The Tava Bar in a particular recipe, but you’re not sure how much to use, then our calculator (below) can help you.
If your recipe doesn’t specify a percentage of cocoa solids, then assume 50% for a sweet result, or 70% for a richer, less sweet result. NOTE: Nestlé is by far the most popular brand of cooking chocolate in Australia.
Happy Cooking! Health considerationsDoes The Tava Bar contain any: sugar / milk solids / soy / gluten / preservatives / or additives of any description?
The answer is no, no, no, no, no, and no. The Tava Bar is a totally unsweetened chocolate that contains 100% cocoa solids, and nothing else (not even vanilla). Can chocolate be considered a health food?
The average chocolate contains more sugar and milk solids than cocoa, and provides lots of calories, but very little nutritional value. But a growing number of scientific studies suggest that some chocolate (particularly dark chocolate which contains no milk solids, and little or no sugar) may actually be good for you (in moderation, of course!).
For example, there is evidence that cocoa and dark chocolate can be credited with providing the following health benefits:
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The Cocoa CommuniquéThe Tava BarBOOK REVIEW:“Foods That Fight Cancer”![]() |
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