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Blond Chocolate

Not white, dark, or milk
  [vote for,

This confection looks a bit like chocolate, but has a completely different taste.

It would consist of sugar, cocoa butter, partially defatted (14% fat or less) roasted peanut flour, and salt.

The overall percentages of fat, sugar, and salt in the confection are roughly the same as that of regular peanut butter; the difference is that the fat consists mostly of cocoa butter and partly of peanut oil, instead of being purely peanut oil.

At room temperature, I would expect it to feel to the touch like regular chocolate, but when placed in the mouth, the cocoa butter should melt, giving a feel (and of course taste) of ordinary peanut butter.

Naturally, there's no hydrogenated fats, no artificial colors or flavors... unlike most kinds of "peanut butter chips" (which this confection, appropriately shaped, should be able to act as a replacement for).

Note: As I lack a proper kitchen in my tiny apartment, I cannot (presently) attempt to make this confection, so it's entirely possible that what I am envisioning wouldn't actually work, or taste as I expect/hope.

goldbb, Mar 30 2010

Blond chocolate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramac
Caramac is not White or milk or dark - but it isn't made with peanuts (thank goodness), nor is it free from artificial-ness. It is very tasty though. [Jinbish, Mar 31 2010]

Somebody is doing a similar thing, but with coffee beans, not peanuts http://tmagazine.bl...kind-of-coffee-bar/
[jutta, Dec 03 2010]


       Oh great, now I'm hungry...   

       Not being well-versed in the culinary sciences, I don't know whether this would work. But it sounds delicious.
DrWorm, Mar 30 2010

       I'd be happy to try this - can't temper to save my life, but it'll do as an experiment - but I'm not sure the mouthfeel of ordinary peanut butter is all that desirable. That mix of grit and stickiness - is that really something you'd like in a bar of chocolate?
jutta, Mar 30 2010

       Not a (potential) recipe? I prefer crunchy peanut butter made from 100% peanuts, and Ghirardelli chocolate.   

       I don't know about peanut flour, wouldn't this tend to make cookies instead of confection?
csea, Mar 31 2010

       // Not a (potential) recipe? //   

       Maybe, but it's an innovation, and it involves chocolate, so it's [Marked-For-Retention].
8th of 7, Mar 31 2010

       Peanut anything = bun.
wagster, Mar 31 2010

       Peanut anything = <spew!>
Jinbish, Mar 31 2010

       Nut flours are not the same as wheat flour, much more protein and less starch. Ground or chopped sufficiently fine, which is admittedly hard to with nut flours, I don't think this would tend towards cookieness.
MechE, Mar 31 2010

       jutta, grittyness is optional -- as with real chocolate, it should be possible to refine and conche the product to produce a smoother treat. Also, it might possibly help to grind the peanut flour extra-fine before mixing it with the other ingredients.   

       The stickiness is unavoidable, so if you suffer from arachibutyrophobia, this isn't the food for you.   

       csea, peanut flour is just (unsweetened, unsalted) peanut butter with most of the oil removed. If you wanted to make it into a cookie, you'd need to mix it with wheat (or other grain) flour.   

       MechE, what's the limiting factor in how finely nut flour can be ground?
goldbb, Mar 31 2010

       I've not actually run into peanut flour. I'm more familiar with acorn flour which retains most of it's oil, which becomes the limiting factor. That is you can chop it but not really grind it, and that doesn't allow as fine an output. If the oil is pressed or leached first, this may not be an issue.
MechE, Mar 31 2010

       Wouldn't you grind the peanuts (or peanut flour) in the same way as cacao is ground to produce cocoa mass? Why not use a mature technology?
spidermother, Dec 03 2010

       I picked up some cacao butter today and finally did the experiment. Melted the butter, adding the defattened peanut powder I'd ordered just after this had been posted until the texture resembled what I'd expect to see when melting chocolate, add salt (a little too much, possibly) and sugar to taste. It really needed the salt. I don't have a conche, so that's that. I then poured the resulting goop into a piece of aluminum foil, cooled to room temperature, covered, and refrigerated to set in a thin bar.   

       The result definitely has the feel, sheen, and snap of chocolate, and the mouth feel of slightly gritty chocolate (if you've ever tried boutique "stone ground" chocolate, it's kind of like that)--it's much less like peanut butter. Yet very peanutty. Maybe a little too peanutty. If you'd use this material in a real food that people eat voluntarily rather than because they're on a lifeboat and need the energy, I think you'd really want to tone it down.   

       Goldbb, you don't need a proper kitchen to try this; just a microwave, some sort of stirrable container and the ingredients should suffice.
jutta, May 08 2011

       Makes sense, cocoa powder is bitter, the butter offsets it. Given that peanut is neutral to sweet, it's going to tend to cloying.   

       Can anyone come up with an additive that would tone down the sweet (or add some bitter) either without altering the taste, or with a viable additive taste? The only thing I'm coming up with is citrus zest with more of the peel interior than normal, which should produce a decent orange or lemon/peanut flavor.
MechE, May 08 2011

       Nuts + chocolate = Yuck! I can't see how this seemingly daft idea is going to improve the flavour of either the peanuts or the chocolate.   

       People who put nuts in chocolate should have their nuts put in chocolate... just my opinion.
infidel, May 09 2011

       I'm impressed that we've* actually managed to carry out some actual, real experimentation on this instead of just arguing about it (hmm, halfbakery as an offshoot of the Popular Front of Judaea?) +

* Taking collective credit for someone else's efforts is entirely justified and there's probably a UN resolution that establishes it as an inalienable human right.
DrBob, May 09 2011

       // People who put nuts in chocolate should have their nuts put in chocolate...   

       Whether or not that is a bad thing really depends on how many chocolate lovers of the appropriate gender(s) are around to lick it off, no?
With a little cream - who knows, it might even lead to a ganache a trois.
ping, May 10 2011

       jutta, thanks for doing the experiment! :) Now, considering that I generally consider most store bought peanut butter cookies to be not peanuty enough, you saying it might be too peanuty means that I'm sure that I would love it :)   

       I am surprised that the mouth feel doesn't have peanut butter's stickiness, I recall reading somewhere that that was caused by the peanut proteins... I suppose it must be the peanut oil that makes peanut butter sticky.   

       8/7, infidel, if there's no cocoa solids in it (which there wouldn't be), then I would expect most chocolate lovers to consider my idea as blasphemous and un-chocolatey as white chocolate ;) Or as un-chocolatey as the Ka- Pow coffee bar that jutta kindly linked to.
goldbb, May 10 2011

       Why don’t we have a word for mouth feel? Is there a tribe somewhere that has 20 words for it? Mouth feel is almost as clumsy as ‘cavity grope’ — it’s too rough and distant an approximation.
Ian Tindale, May 10 2011

       //Why don’t we have a word for mouth feel?// We do: "mouthfeel." How can you not like a word that contains "thf? "
mouseposture, May 10 2011

       'Texture', I believe, is the word you are groping for. The Japanese are particularly keen on diverse mouthfeels as an essential component in any quality meal. I had a twelve course meal in a Japanese hotel once, and it was a completely strange but interesting journey through a culinary wonderland. Each course was rather on the small side I might add and a side order of chips was not available.
DrBob, May 11 2011


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