Forget Baking Chocolate: Discover a Superior Secret for Perfect Desserts!

It’s hardly a national secret anymore. Yes, you’re a chocolate addict. In all its forms. From hot chocolate to dip your buttered morning baguette (your version of Proust’s madeleine) to the robust little square of dark chocolate with your coffee (and the milk chocolate for evening snacks in front of the TV) to the all-chocolate cookie at four o’clock, chocolate marks every moment of your day.

In baking? Unsurprisingly, you lean more towards molten hearts and brownies rather than fruit tarts and clafoutis. Because to you, a dessert without chocolate is like a béchamel without milk or a gratin without cheese: unthinkable. So much so that you make sure you never, ever run out of baking chocolate bars in your cupboard.

But why do we consistently use so-called “baking” chocolate whenever we whip up a cake or a mousse? Because it’s named that way, you might say. True. But also because its composition is different from regular eating chocolate. The chocolate found in supermarkets under labels like “dessert chocolate,” “baking chocolate,” or sometimes “cooking chocolate” contains a higher cocoa butter content – between 26 and 31% – which makes it easier to melt and work with.

Ironically, baking chocolate isn’t the pinnacle of chocolate in baking: “chocolate is a bit like wine… There’s the not so good, the good, and the very good,” begin Léa and JB, pastry trainers, on their Instagram account. They continue: “if you want to choose well for your baking, it’s important that you turn to couverture chocolate because it’s a mark of quality”. Once reserved for professionals, this chocolate often comes in the form of disks, pellets, or chips and contains more than 31% cocoa butter. Less sweet and more chocolatey than regular baking chocolate, it also becomes more fluid and glossy when melted, yet more brittle when set.

Any recommendations? The two experts share their favorites: “In the professional world, we really appreciate Chocolaterie de l’Opéra. And at home, we also like to use Cacao Barry or Valrhona,” they say. This could take your chocolate fondant to the next level.