Ice cream and chocolate go hand-in-hand. Many ice cream parlours have expanded their assortment with chocolate and bonbons, but even for those ice cream makers who prefer to just stick to ice cream and ice cream cakes, chocolate is a wonderful - and maybe a must-have? - ingredient! The Dutch master ice cream makers who form the IceTOP recently paid a visit to Belgian chocolate manufacturer Barry/Callebaut.
Tour
A light chocolate scent penetrates our senses as we approach Barry/Callebaut in the Belgian town of Lebbeke-Wieze. The members of IceTOP - the society of Dutch master ice cream makers - slowly trickle in at the reception; here, they are about to receive a tour of the largest production branch of the world’s market leader in chocolate followed by a workshop at one of Callebaut's Chocolate Academies located just across the border in Zundert (NL).
The group is shown a video telling the story of how cacao fruit is transformed into chocolate as a prelude for the tour. The viewer is swept away to cacao producers in Ghana, where the cacao fruit is harvested, fermented, and sometimes already processed into nibs (roasted cacao beans separated from their husks and broken into smaller pieces). The cacao beans are then transported in gunnysacks to Europe, America or Asia by boat. There, the cacao is tested, cleaned and dried, followed by a long production process.
After arrival in the factory, it is clearly visible that virtually the entire process is fully automated. Our guide, Sonja van den Bossche, leads the group along a machine where nibs are roasted and then ground into a liquid mass. The cacao mass is then mixed with cacao butter, sugar, milk powder, and sometimes vanilla, after which the concoction is pulverised into a very fine powder by heavy rollers.
Impressive
Elsewhere in the production room, the guide allows the ice cream makers to take a peek into an enormous kettle from a raised platform. This is where the chocolate is conched: the batter is extensively kneaded so as to evaporate any remaining moisture, melt the cacao butter, and (partially) release acids. The amount of cacao butter and soy lecithin added at the end of the process determines the final liquidity of the chocolate. “Impressive”, IceTOP Chairman Remco Dekker remarks. Chocolate is an important ingredient for his business in Ulvenhout; Dekker uses it for his refined bonbons, for the chocolate letters, and of course in his pastry and freshly churned ice cream. And his artisanal products aren’t cheap: “But when you let people taste some of the grand cru chocolate we use and explain to them why our prices are higher, or when they participate in a bonbon-making workshop, they often conclude that the price per kilogramme is quite reasonable.”
Taste test
After the tour and a lunch, we move on to Callebaut's Chocolate Academy in Zundert. Ton Jongejan, a teacher and technical advisor, is already waiting for us, and invites the master ice cream makers for taste-testing the chocolate chips. We try out the chocolate with various proportions/ratios of chocolate, sugar and cacao butter, and we compare blends of chocolate chips from single-country beans. The earth on which the cacao beans are cultivated clearly influences the taste; during the taste test, one can hear numerous expressions, such as ‘bitter’, ‘sweet’ and ‘fruity’. We also taste notes of ‘morello’, ‘citrus’ and ‘roasted nuts’. The tasters even remark that one of the types of chocolate ‘smells like guinea pig.’
Jongejan explains that simply adding a little melted grand cru chocolate to your chocolate ice cream can add a distinct touch, explaining that, “The trend is for increasingly darker chocolate. Even young people now frequently ask for dark chocolate.” After the chocolate, the taste-testers continue with nut pastes, caramel cream and a grenache - and one new product in particular is received with great enthusiasm: Cara Crakine, a mixture of caramel, milk chocolate and toasted biscuit cereals. Jongejan shows how the product can be easily processed and cut with great ease - even after it has been rolled out. The master ice cream makers see many possibilities for using Crakine as a base or intermediate layer for ice cream cakes.
Decorations
Jongejan demonstrates with all kinds of techniques how one can easily and quickly make one’s own decorations with chocolate. “Chocolate copies the structure of the material on which you spread it”, he explains. He then tapes-up a few strips of cellophane tape onto a stainless steel plate and spreads chocolate onto it. The result is chocolate that is alternately glossy and matt.
A bit later, Jongejan pours chocolate into ice-cold, 96% pure alcohol, which causes the chocolate to form a small nest-like structure. He even demonstrates spreading untableted chocolate onto a frozen aluminium or marble plate to shape the chocolate into elegant curls. Next, the Callebaut expert cuts off the tip of a folded cornet and squirts lines of chocolate into a cup of vanilla sugar to make fun-looking and great-tasting vanilla sticks in a whip. And even decorating a bonbon or a chocolate with a star or a logo need not be difficult, Jongejan demonstrates, with the use of a transfer sheet.
Jongejan takes a few pearls in white and dark chocolate with biscuit fillings and adds a spoonful of mother-of-pearl colouring, and then shortly shakes the little box. The result is amazingly attractive and stylish pearls. Marcel Jansen from the Florence Ice Cream Parlour in Nederweert is immediately enthusiastic: “It’s easy and fancy”, states Janssen, who recently won the title ‘Ice Cream Parlour of the Year’ and uses chocolate for his ice cream and for decoration. “I think one should not switch too often with the type of chocolate one uses for their ice cream, but I can imagine making a specialty of the month every now and then, for example, with a bitter chocolate...”
Chocolate assortment
The ice cream makers do have different opinions concerning the advantages of expanding the ice cream assortment with chocolate and bonbons. “I estimate that about twenty-five percent of the ice cream parlours in the Netherlands sell chocolate and bonbons as well”, says Hans Kennis, master ice cream maker and account manager for Carpigiani's Dutch artisanal department, according to whom bonbons and chocolate offer an alternative steady income stream during the winter period and bad weather when ice cream sales drop. ‘Of course, many other combinations are possible as well. Take Limburgia that works with franchises, which started with the combination of flan and artisanal ice cream.’
Some ice cream parlour owners say they simply do not have enough time to offer chocolate and bonbons in addition to their speciality of ice cream. Luc Blok, for example, devotes all of his time to ice cream and ice cream cakes during the ice cream season, and during the months the ice cream parlour is closed, he runs a doughnut ball stall. Caroline Kooij, owner of the ice cream parlour De Hoop in Blaricum, also states that she is too busy to add bonbons and chocolate to her assortment - and even goes as far to say she does not need the extra business.
Eeuwe de Jong, however, is a firm believer in the combination of chocolate and ice cream. Together with his son Romke, he runs De Jong’s Ice cream Parlour in Gorredijk, Friesland. In addition, they have almost fifty ice cream carts that are rented out during events. They started with the franchise Lilly’s Ice Cream and Chocolate, with De Jong commenting that, “The Lilly branches, which are opened all year round, also sell chocolate and chocolate truffles.” Unlike ice cream, however, they do not make the chocolate themselves: “We chose to work with an outstanding chocolate confectioner. He developed an entire line especially for us.”