Blond Vs Pink: French-Swiss Battle For 'fourth' Chocolate

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Mar, 2024) A fourth chocolate -- "blond" -- has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces competition from a pink Swiss variety.

Blond choccy was born from an accident.

French pastry chef Frederic Bau was demonstrating his skills at an exhibition in Japan, and left his white chocolate warming a little too long in a bain-marie... four days, to be precise.

"By chance, by magic... it became blond! This chocolate appeared with an incredible colour and smell", recalls Bau, who is creative director for chocolatier Valrhona.

Bau immediately smelled the commercial potential of this happy blunder, but it took seven years of testing to perfect its unique aromatic qualities and consistency.

The recipe remains a secret but has been officially registered by Valrhona, and is sold under the name Dulcey since 2012.

However, the basic chemistry is well-understood.

It is the "Maillard reaction", a sequence of chemical reactions between amino acids and reducing sugars, causing browning and aromas that are close to toasting.

To taste, blond chocolate has the milky fattiness of white chocolate but is much less sweet, with a soft caramel flavour and an aftertaste of roasted coffee.

French pastry chefs tend to snub white chocolate, associating it with the big slabs they gobbled as children.

But blond opens up new possibilities.

"It's very different from other chocolates. It gives a very biscuity, very delicious taste," Nice-based pastry chef Philippe Tayac told AFP, who combines it with hazelnuts for a tartlet.

Bau combines it as a pure fondant dessert with freshly roasted apples and a Tahitian vanilla cream, and he also recommends "breaking it up" with more distinct fruity combinations, such as citrus or red fruit.