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Chocolate Making Courses

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  2. Department of Food Science

Enhance the quality and consistency of your chocolate

Enhance the quality and consistency of your chocolate with U of G's comprehensive 4-day Chocolate Science course. Dive deep into the science of chocolate crafting, from bean selection to the final product, through expert lectures and hands-on practice. Master the art of cocoa butter crystallization for perfect tempering, understand the impact of roasting on flavor, refine your palate to detect subtle nuances, and explore the fermentation process for richer chocolate. Learn how emulsifiers affect your creations and utilize them effectively. Join us to elevate your chocolate-making skills to the next level.

Engaging course topics

During your 4-day course, you explore the science behind crafting perfect chocolate, fermentation and roasting, grinding, nutrition, analytical techniques and chocolate tasting.

Hands-on learning

This course is fully in-person where you interact directly with instructors, network with other participants, and get your hands dirty (and sticky) and engage in lively and thoughtful presentations and discussions

Learn from the best

Gain insight into the art of chocolate making through course instructors that have conducted ground-breaking research and studies into chocolate making.

Contact Us

Course cost: $1,200 (includes all supplies, lunch, and refreshments during the course)

Instructor: Fernanda Peyronel (Svaikauskas)

Who Is the Course Designed For?

This course is designed for:

  • Professional chocolatiers and product developers interested in the scientific processes behind quality chocolate production.
  • Entrepreneurs in the bean-to-bar industry seeking a comprehensive overview of cocoa processing.
  • Serious chocolate enthusiasts who want to understand every aspect of their favourite indulgence

Sample topics covered in this course:

  • How fermentation and roasting go hand in hand
  • How much is too much grinding?
  • Nutritional aspects of nibs and chocolate bars
  • Analytical techniques and chocolate tasting

Course Schedule

Presentations:

  • The cycle of a cacao bean from the plant to a chocolate liquor
  • Changes in the cacao bean during fermentation and roasting

Hands on:

  • Use a convection oven to roast beans
  • Breaking and Winnowing

Presentations:

  • Changes during grinding, refining and conching
  • Chocolates standard of identities in Canada
  • The role of ingredients: sugar, fat, emulsifier, cocoa powder
  • Recipes in the four chocolate categories

Hands on:

  • Grinding of beans suing Bench Top Melangers

Presentations:

  • Nutrients in nibs
  • Fat replacement: is this a good thing or a bad one?
  • Cane Sugar replacement: changes in the final product
  • Methods to carry out tempering and why is it needed

Hands on:

  • Discussion of the recipe to use based on the chocolate to make.
  • Add ingredients according to the recipe using the Melanger

Presentation:

  • The crystalline structure of a chocolate bar and analytical techniques used to study this.
  • How to be free of contaminants: General Manufacture Practices (GMP) at farm level and at industry level.

Hands on:

  • Demold bars
  • Testing of the chocolate bars made as well as some commercial ones.
  • Visit and to the Microscopy facility at the Science Complex and to some of the Food Science Labs.

Invited speaker to wrap up the presentation: Perspective of a cacao bean importer

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About Us

The Department of Food Science provides state of the art knowledge translation focused on developing sustainable, safe and innovative foods aimed at improving human health. Research done in Food Science focuses on interdisciplinary studies spanning chemistry, biology, microbiology, natural product chemistry, nanoscience, physics and nutritional science.

  • Undergraduate Programs
  • Graduate Programs
  • Continuing Education (Short Courses)

Contact Us

Telephone: (519) 824-4120 extension 56589

Mailing Address:
University of Guelph
Food Science Department
50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario
Canada N1G 2W1

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