Fig. 43.
Recently the creams sometimes described as in the heading have enjoyed a vast popularity, and are sold as eatable chocolates in ever-increasing quantities. As far as can be ascertained, they were first manufactured in Switzerland, melt readily, and have a correspondingly large amount of fat, resulting from the addition of cacao butter, which distinguishes them from ordinary chocolates. When readily melting chocolates were first introduced, it was a prevailing opinion that the required property could only be obtained by increasing the amount of fatty content. Now the excessive evidence of fat in chocolates is very objectionable, both as regards taste and digestibility. To avoid this, therefore, the chocolates are treated mechanically, to attain the required character of readily melting. The machines used for that purpose are termed “Conches”, because the trough, in which the chocolate is rubbed into a long cylinder, has somewhat the shape of a long shell. For the working up of chocolates in conches, the necessary conditions are;
1. that the chocolate should have been ground perfectly fine,
2. it must contain such an amount of fat as to become glucose on warming, not indeed so thin as that used as coating material, but nevertheless softer than the ordinary cake-chocolate of good quality.
Fig. 43 a.
Fig. 44.
The machine can be heated by means of steam, hot water pipes, gas or charcoal stoking, according as they are available in the place of installation, and the temperature should rise above 70-80° C. for fondants, and 50° C. for milk chocolates. In factories with water power or electricity, continuous fondant machines can be worked day and night, but when only worked during the day, must be kept warm overnight. Constant tending of the machine is unnecessary, as it works automatically. After a treatment of from 40-48 hours, the chocolate attains the requisite character (i.e. it melts readily), and a rounding off of taste, which are the properties of all good brands. Milk chocolates can also be advantageously prepared in the conche, as also covering or coating cacaos of all kinds, which harden considerably in consequence of this treatment.
Figs. 43 and 43 a show quadruple conches of the modern type with hot water, wherein four troughs are arranged in pairs, and one opposite the other. Conches with only 1 and 2 troughs are also constructed, and in various sizes, the troughs sometimes having a capacity of 125 and 200 kilos, so that the quadruple conche is capable of holding five or eight hundred kilograms in all. The curved bottom of the troughs, as well as the rollers fitted in them, are made of granite, and the front wall strongly bent in at the corner, so that the mass is forced over the border of the front wall, where there are openings for its discharge as well. To prevent radiation as far as possible, it is best that the troughs be walled in, the troughs are either walled. Fig. 44 shows the room of a modern chocolate factory, with 15 conches.
“Chocolats fondants” are from a gastronomic point of view, the finest chocolate product on the market, and it is not remarkable that this branch of the chocolate manufacture has witnessed a considerable extension, and is likely to extend still more.