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www.thecaterer.com The Chocolate Show
The Chocolate Show offers an opportunity to meet like-minded chocolate nerds and experts when it returns to London from 16-18 October. Up to 15,000 visitors are expected to attend to enjoy indulgent treats, celebrity demonstrations, free tastings and a unique chocolate fashion show in Olympia’s National Hall. Chocolatier, writer and pâtisserie owner
This image and right: cocoa pods on the tree
Paul A Young, chefs Chris and Jeff Galvin and self-taught chocolatier Aneesh Popat will be demonstrating their skills at the show.
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“Visiting Ghana has definitely influenced my plating style and broadened my out- look on chocolate. It’s such a labour-intense ingredient,” adds Leatherbarrow. Ed Loftus, head of food development at
A cocoa pod The fermentation process
Jamie Oliver’s Restaurant Group, won the second place on the trip with his Ultimate Chocolate Ice-Cream Sandwich, which fea- tured two layers of chocolate-chip cookie tuile, sandwiching layers of white chocolate parfait, roasted cocoa nib jelly, Arriba chocolate, burnt caramel parfait and a molten Gianduja centre. This is then half-dipped in chocolate before the edges are rolled in toasted, nibbed hazelnuts. “I love nostalgic desserts that remind us of growing up,” says Loftus. “Chocolate is a big deal and we all need to make a conscious effort to understand and communicate the effort involved in manufacturing it.” Sarah Barber, former head pastry chef at ME London and now executive pastry chef at the Corinthia London, says chocolate is a key ingredient in the hotel’s kitchen and is used in many forms: from plated desserts to moulded pralines; entremets to petit gateaux; and after- noon teas to showpiece work. “For me, being a pastry chef is all about creativity, and working with chocolate allows me to develop a huge range of products.” Barber believes it is important that the
Thomas Leatherbarrow’s winning dessert
From cherelles to chocolate
Cocoa is a plant that requires a very specific set of circumstances to grow and prosper. Cocoa seedlings (that in Ghana are given away to farmers for free) can become 15-26 feet tall. They blossom and produce small pods called cherelles that grow into cocoa pods – with only 10% of that pod producing the cocoa beans that are used for chocolate. Cocoa can only grow in regions that
are within 20 degrees north or south of the equator. West Africa has emerged as
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the dominant player in cocoa production, with approximately 73% of the market share in 2012. Cocoa trees take between three to five
years to reach maturity and bear fruit, at which time only a total of 20 pods might be ready for harvest. On average, 10 pods produce just under 1kg of cocoa, so the average tree can produce only a little over 1.8kg of cocoa. Once the beans have been dried and fermented, an average sealed 64kg bag of
cocoa would fetch a local Ghanaian purchasing company the sum of 350 cedis, which is equivalent to approximately £59 (with only 50%-65% of the price going to the farmer). The pods are picked by hand, fermented, and then turned in simple wooden devices. The beans are then laid out to dry and picked by hand. Once bagged and checked for moisture, the bags are sent off to a government association (in Ghana it is the Cocoa Board) for quality checks and sizing.
31 July 2015 | The Caterer | 57
dessert should taste of the main components. “The most important factors when creating a new product are taste and texture, but the dessert should also be cleansing and light to the palate,” she adds.
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