This month, Paul Dickson tackles the rising cost of chocolate with some inventive and practical solutions to satisfying the sweetest tooth.
There’s no getting away from it, while some food costs are stabilising and coming down, the price of chocolate is rising, mainly due to a global supply shortage of cocoa. Whilst we can’t get away from this fact, the people we’re catering for still expect this staple ingredient to be on our menus in some shape or form. So how do you keep the chocoholics happy whilst maintaining your bottom line? My main piece of advice is to use less of it and these ideas enable you to do this without compromising on indulgence and flavour.
Rocky Road
When it comes to on-the-go chocolate treats, you can’t go wrong with a rocky road. The additions are completely up to you so can vary depending on what you have or what is cost effective, but there must be a range of textures, like crunchy biscuit and chewy marshmallow. The clever thing about this timeless crowd-pleaser is the low cost inclusions negate the need for as much chocolate.
Choose Mousse
Chocolate mousse is universally familiar and a good option for your menu. It can be made as a base for a more elaborate dessert or kept simple and easy to serve. It’s also easy to modify for people with special requirements, such as dysphagia. The other good thing about it is that you can make it really chocolatey without using too much. The key to this is getting plenty of air into your egg whites so that when you fold through the chocolate, it goes really far.
- When you create your egg mixture, make sure you beat plenty of air into it.
- You will find that a small amount of good quality chocolate now goes a long way.
- Gently fold in your whipped egg whites.
- You have a rich, voluminous mousse without using too much chocolate.
Delegate Dessert
There is another way to keep your costs in check and that is to let someone else do all the hard work for you so you can concentrate on the rest of your menu. By adding a ready-made pre-portioned dessert to your menu, you know your cost per portion and if you have a stock in the freezer, you also know that won’t change any time soon. The other way of doing this, is to use mixes such as Country Range Chocolate Crème Cake Mix or Chocolate Delight Mix. You know the cost per portion and you then only have to add to it as much or as little as your budget allows.