Which One Is Suitable and How to Use It? Belgian Chocolate and More. Which Is Better to Choose and What Should It Be?

Choco­late is one of the most beloved treats, so its pop­u­lar­i­ty remains unchanged. To diver­si­fy the serv­ing of this set, dif­fer­ent forms of the prod­uct, addi­tion­al ingre­di­ents can be used, but the choco­late foun­tain looks the most impres­sive. The molten mass cir­cu­lat­ing in a spe­cial appa­ra­tus looks very appe­tiz­ing, inter­est­ing and attrac­tive. If you want to make a choco­late foun­tain, you need to know what ingre­di­ents are need­ed for it.

Choco­late for a choco­late foun­tain dif­fers slight­ly from the usu­al one, it melts faster and has a more liq­uid con­sis­ten­cy, which allows it to flow beau­ti­ful­ly from the foun­tain and spread even­ly over the prod­uct. In order to make such beau­ty on your own, you need to choose the right raw mate­ri­als for work.

There is a vari­ety of choco­late that can be used in the foun­tain.

• Spe­cial­ized - the com­po­si­tion con­tains a larg­er amount of cocoa but­ter, due to which the mass becomes more liq­uid and plas­tic. The struc­ture of the mech­a­nism of the choco­late foun­tain involves work­ing with a rather liq­uid sub­stance, which it can lift and bring out through the top. If the mass is too thick, then the oper­a­tion of the device will be dif­fi­cult, and even­tu­al­ly it will fail. The use of thick­er choco­late does not allow the raw mate­ri­als to quick­ly flow down, flow­ing beau­ti­ful­ly through the bowls, which means that the main idea will be vio­lat­ed. In order for choco­late to melt ll and be plas­tic, the cocoa but­ter con­tent in it should be from 30 to 40% of the total mass of the prod­uct. Dairy vari­eties are more flu­id, as they con­tain milk fat. Dark choco­late must con­tain more than 40% cocoa but­ter to have the desired appear­ance. Spe­cial­ized prod­ucts are labeled, allow­ing you to select the desired prod­uct, the pack­ag­ing may be marked: Foun­tain, Foun­tain choco­late and sim­i­lar options. In addi­tion to being used in foun­tains, these vari­eties can be eat­en sol­id or used in con­fec­tionery.

• Non-spe­cial­ized - choco­late, the main direc­tion of which is not the use in choco­late foun­tains. Such options do not have spe­cial des­ig­na­tions on the pack­ag­ing, they do not have the right amount of cocoa but­ter, there­fore they are less flu­id. On sale you can find such a prod­uct under the name “choco­late for Calle­baut foun­tains”, in the instruc­tions of which there will be a note about the need to add addi­tion­al amounts of cocoa but­ter. For melt­ing, you can use the usu­al vari­eties of choco­late, bring­ing it to the state of the desired liq­uid. On aver­age, for a reg­u­lar bar, it will be nec­es­sary to add 20–35% cocoa but­ter, which is 200–250 g per 1 kg of choco­late. There are also more expen­sive options for choco­late prod­ucts, which have a much high­er con­tent of cocoa but­ter in their com­po­si­tion, so you only need to make an addi­tion­al 3–5%, which is 100–130 grams. Calle­baut pro­duces the most suit­able vari­eties of choco­late, which are suc­cess­ful­ly applied in the foun­tain, adding a small amount of cocoa but­ter. If desired, you can use black, dairy and fruit vari­eties.

• Choco­late glaze - in addi­tion to bars and oth­er vari­eties of choco­late, con­sist­ing of cocoa but­ter, it is pos­si­ble to use con­fec­tionery glaze, which uses sub­sti­tutes for the main raw mate­ri­als. Well-known man­u­fac­tur­ers cre­ate high-qual­i­ty glaze that tastes good and melts ll. The most famous are the Ital­ian firms “Uni­tron” and “Ital­i­ca”, which have been man­u­fac­tur­ing qual­i­ty prod­ucts for many years.

To make a choco­late foun­tain, you need to find the right raw mate­ri­als for it. Sev­er­al firms are con­sid­ered the most high-qual­i­ty and proven man­u­fac­tur­ers of such prod­ucts.

• Bar­ry Calle­baut – has the appear­ance of cal­lets, which increas­es the melt­ing rate and makes the use of raw mate­ri­als more con­ve­nient. In addi­tion to black and dairy vari­eties, there are also fruit vari­eties that con­tain nat­ur­al fla­vors that do not harm humans. To pro­tect the mech­a­nism of the foun­tain, it is rec­om­mend­ed to add an addi­tion­al 10% cocoa but­ter. In addi­tion, the man­u­fac­tur­er pro­duces lumpy milk choco­late prod­ucts, which con­tain 35% cocoa liquor and 20% milk, as ll as 70% dark choco­late. In order for the con­sis­ten­cy of these vari­eties to be as liq­uid as pos­si­ble, it is also worth adding 10% cocoa but­ter to them.

• Bel­gian choco­late Puratos, which has a vari­ety of prod­ucts: white (28%), milky (34%), black (56%), bit­ter (72%) “Bel­co­lade”, which is allod to be used for a choco­late foun­tain with­out any addi­tives. Out­ward­ly, these prod­ucts look like small pills that are pack­aged in bags of 5 kilo­grams.

• Bel­gium also pro­duces foun­tain raw mate­ri­als such as white “Cabo Blan­co” (27%), milky “Mara­cai­bo” (34%), black “San Felipe” (58%)which can be bought in con­tain­ers of 2.5 kg.

• The Ital­ian com­pa­ny Ita­li­ka pro­duces white and dark glaze, which is pack­aged in paper bags from 1 to 20 kg.

• Cacao Bar­ry a Swiss com­pa­ny that pro­duces choco­late with 70–76% cocoa. Raw mate­ri­als are col­lect­ed in Venezuela, Ecuador, Domini­can Repub­lic, Cuba and Mex­i­co.

Using high-qual­i­ty raw mate­ri­als for a choco­late foun­tain allows you to get a beau­ti­ful and spec­tac­u­lar dessert that will delight both adults and chil­dren. The pres­ence of the right amount of cocoa but­ter allows you to make the con­sis­ten­cy thin enough to secure the mech­a­nism of the foun­tain.

To find out which choco­late vari­ant is best for use in a foun­tain, it is nec­es­sary to ana­lyze the options based on a num­ber of cri­te­ria.

1. Tim­ing - fresh choco­late allows you to get opti­mal flu­id­i­ty and an unfor­get­table taste and aro­ma. It is impor­tant to eval­u­ate the prod­uct pack­ag­ing, check its tight­ness. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant in expen­sive options.

2. State - choco­late should be hard or slight­ly soft in case of high tem­per­a­ture in the room where it is locat­ed. With prop­er stor­age, a slight soft­en­ing does not affect the qual­i­ty of the prod­uct and its ease of use, and if the tem­per­a­ture regime is vio­lat­ed, the cal­lets begin to stick togeth­er, form­ing a mono­lith­ic mass that will have to be cut, spend­ing time and effort on it.

3. Mark­ing fea­tures - many man­u­fac­tur­ers indi­cate on the pack­ag­ing that the prod­uct can be used in the mech­a­nisms of choco­late foun­tains, but in fact, cocoa but­ter must be added to work with it, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es the cost of all ingre­di­ents or may cost the device to break if choco­late is used with­out any addi­tives.

To make a choco­late foun­tain, you need to melt the choco­late mass. Among the main meth­ods you can use:

• water bath;

• microwave, melt­ing raw mate­ri­als in a spe­cial­ized con­tain­er;

• microwave, leav­ing the choco­late in the man­u­fac­tur­er’s pack­ag­ing;

• spe­cial tech­nique for melt­ing choco­late, which is rec­om­mend­ed for pro­fes­sion­als;

• heat­ing choco­late in the lor bowl of the foun­tain, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to do this, since in this case the mech­a­nism is heav­i­ly loaded, and it will not be able to work like this for a long time.

When using spe­cial­ized choco­late, you only need to melt the mass and pour it into the foun­tain. If non-spe­cial­ized options are used in the work, then dur­ing the melt­ing process, cocoa but­ter must be added and mixed ll to obtain a homo­ge­neous and plas­tic mass that can be poured into the foun­tain.

To acti­vate the choco­late foun­tain imme­di­ate­ly after adding the mass to it, it is nec­es­sary to pre­heat its bowl so that the com­po­si­tion that has entered it does not begin to thick­en. When choos­ing ordi­nary bar choco­late, it is very impor­tant to use only clean options, with­out nuts, raisins and oth­er ele­ments that can clog the foun­tain mech­a­nism or dis­able it.

The con­sump­tion of choco­late from the foun­tain is car­ried out with the help of long wood­en sticks or oth­er impro­vised means, on which fruits, chew­ing marsh­mal­lows or oth­er prod­ucts are strung, which are sub­sti­tut­ed under the flow­ing choco­late mass. In order not to burn your­self, it is rec­om­mend­ed to allow a few min­utes for the choco­late-cov­ered object to cool and the mass to thick­en.