The Science Behind Chocolate, How to Temper it, and Millionaire’s Shortbread | What’s Eating Dan?
Chocolate is sweet, bitter, complexly-flavored, and melt in your mouth decadent… but it’s also really complicated. In addition to teaching you the science behind cacao and chocolate bars and tempering chocolate, Dan also makes Millionaire’s Shortbread, also known as incredible homemade Twix bars.
Get the recipe for Millionaire’s Shortbread:
See the new taste test of (very) dark chocolate:
Follow Dan on Instagram:
Follow Dan on Twitter:
Follow Dan on Facebook:
Purchase our Science of Good Cooking Cookbook:
Check out our new equipment series, Gear Heads:
ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.
If you like us, follow us:
I'm one of those weird people who doesn't really like chocolate and it doesn't matter which kind you're talking about. I just don't care for it. Sorry.
Very clever way of tempering chocolate that ensures maximal stable crystals!
Just too add some data, I eat almost exclusively Trader Joe’s 72% dark chocolate in the red wrapper. I probably go through 20 pounds a year. About 10 years ago I decided to not waste calories on chocolate I don’t like.
To separate it into pieces I use a chocolate pick. It looks like a big fork with thick prongs.
Thank you
Theobromine is the reason American chocolate tastes like vomit.
We just call that caramel slice. It's been an Australian grandma and cake stall favourite for several generations. American chocolate is gross
I'm a person that likes a lot of strong, interesting, "mature" flavours (brussel sprouts, marmite, anchovies, coffee, aniseed, etc.) but plain dark chocolate is one of the few I just can't appreciate. It's ok as a coating or in chip form mixed into cookies, but solo squares of dark chocolate taste so much worse to me than milk/white.
My mom made this more or less.. Its a fantastic cookie
Dan is the sort of man you wouldn't mind one of your kids marrying…
😘💕
White chocolate is to real chocolate as a flat tire is to a new car. UGH!!
Kind of like a used lollipop stick compared to a large, ice cream cone. (Chocolate ice cream, of course)
Courtesy of Half Vast Flying
How about adding units to your temperatures? Is it now 96°F or C?
I listen to these videos, but I do not enjoy watching them.
I love milk chocolate, but when I see it in baked goods, I cringe.
I appreciate your videos. Sadly, I've just found them. I have no idea if you look back at comments on year-old videos, but I have a question. I grew up in the U.S. with all the American chocolates like Hershey's, M&M Mars, Annabelles, See's, Ghiradelli, Dove and the like. At Christmas we got Freia from Norway. Is it just pride in my ancestry, or does Freia taste better than the American chocolates?
I love milk chocolate!
I'm going to say it, milk chocolate is the only chocolate in bar form worth eating. Social media made dark chocolate a fad, but really it's gross and no better for you.
Or…… Just get on the bus and pass them out if you want to be really really popular! 🙂
That video made me so happy 😊 thanks Dan!
why not say where the word chocolate comes from 🙁
Millionaire's shortbread: Popular on both sides the Atlantic. USA and UK chocolate are completely different but MS still takes the….. biscuit!🤣
I love chocolate but I thought frenetic style of this segment is giving me a headache.
A great addition to these millionaire shortbread would be a layer of mini-pretzels amoung all that chocolate caramely goodness. Salty, sweet, yum..
Ugh. I hate millionaire's shortbread. I love chocolate, shortbread, and caramel, but together, it's just toooo sweet. Now, shortbread dipped in dark chocolate? Yeah, baby, bring it on.
I just love him!
EW, GROSS CHOCOLATE!
93° … *boiles in European*
Dan, what a great teacher, this easily could have been a series, various types of chocolate and their uses. Not made was the analogy of cocoa bean travels from plant to table, not unlike coffee bean.
Has anyone fermented the beans with koji?
2:58 Actually, for most of its history, chocolate was consumed as a drink, not as a solid, and even when sweetened with honey, it was quite bitter.
When your introduction to chocolate as a kid is Hershey's, small wonder chocolate consumption in the US is lower than Switzerland, it's awful stuff. I grew up eating Cadburys and not the pseudo Cadburys sold in American supermarkets, Hershey did a deal with Cadburys so they couldn't sell their superior product over here. The Cadbury's you buy in the US is made by Hershey and they tinkered with it so it's not the same, but it is still better than a Hershey bar imho. The difference in deliciousness is night and day, The Hershey monopoly on the chocolate market is a crime against taste buds.
He's right! I made that Millionaire's Shortbread and was voted most popular at work (for the day anyway). 😁
Offered people Millionaire's shortbread on my walk to the bus and I got arrested :/
Haha, you get a Like for confirming what we all know is true: we love milk chocolate. XD I've worked with chocolate for four years now. I'm so tired of the comments about dark chocolate. You're not cool because dark is your favorite. Milk and white fans don't feel the need to announce it every time they eat it hahaha Finally a vent for this super niche complaint of mine!
That drumroll was genius xD
Chocolate is a fermented food! Gut health advocates are shook, chocolate lovers are jumping for joy. I’ll apologize to my downstairs neighbor later!
I personally like 90% dark for eating.
Milk chocolate is the king.
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😛😛😛😛😛😛😛😛
Information is power.. as I watched this an idea came to me.. Since I prefer softer textured chocolate chips when I am eating chocolate chip cookie .. why not melt the chocolate first .. get it OUT of temper on purpose.. then break it up or cut it up and add to my cookies before baking .. I think it is worth some extensive research .. ; ]
Dano! You are so adorable! You're the kind of boy that dreams are made of!
I made the millionaire's shortbread and it is so damn good! Go make it right now
Seriously. I’m overly fond of dark or milk chocolate, but give me a really good white chocolate and I’ll be yours forever.
You have incensed me sir with your audacious assumption that I have always loved milk chocolate!! That's simply not the case. And now as a lactose intolerant mid-lifer…I REALLY do not like or love or tolerate milk chocolate.
Keep your assumptions to yourself!
All the top comments are about Claire Saffitz 🍫🤣