"The chocolate is carefully chosen, the proportion of chocolate to milk and water (I was surprised by the water) is precise, and the frothy step is considered a necessity, not a fillip". To make it at home, you'll need to heat up milk, water, and sugar; whisk in chopped dark chocolate; then blend it for a good minute.
After excluding leftover chocolates, we performed regression curve fitting and estimation to generate a potential mathematical model of chocolate consumption by using statistical software, with an independent variable of survival time and a dependent variable of the proportion of chocolates remaining.
Regression curve fitting suggested that the rate of emptying of a box of chocolates was best explained by an exponential decay curve with equation Cp=e−λt; where Cp is the proportion of chocolates remaining, t is the time in minutes, and λ is the decay constant, which was −0.007 for our model (model R=0.844, P<0.001).
So, I settled on milk and experimented with the proportions of chocolate, cocoa and sugar.
I also experiment with cutting down the sugar, and using a proportion of milk chocolate to give a more rounded flavour, but it's still too sickly – I conclude the recipe needs the clean, slightly bitter flavour of dark chocolate to make it palatable.
Criollo is often preferred by the fine flavour chocolate producers but tends to suffer from poor yields, whereas Matina, an Amelonado type, one of the most grown genetic groups, is higher yielding and makes up a large proportion of bulk chocolate.
Because the proportion of cocoa powder is lower than in dark chocolate, milk chocolate is also lower in flavanols.
The purer this dark chocolate, the better, so look for a chocolate with a high ratio of chocolate solids.
For vegetarians, white chocolate is a much better substitute than regular butter, as the high proportion of cocoa fat it contains stays as hard as dripping at room temperature.
The basic proportion of cream to chocolate is what determines the firmness of the ganache, he explains.
1 The authors' experience is that chocolate consumption in a hospital environment is a relatively common occurrence, and that gifts from patients and their families represent a large proportion of healthcare workers' chocolate consumption.
