The Cafe Mocha: Best chocolate and methods. Your opinions?

Our Cafe offers several mocha choices and we wish to upgrade the quality of each. We struggle with the plastic pumps used with the standard chocolate syrup bottles. The powdered chocolates are good quality but time consuming to mix into individual drinks. What works well for you?

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Vahlrona 70% cocoa powder mixed equally with fine sugar and the smallest amount of salt to taste...
Awesome.
steam in milk.
FWIW...iced beverages should always be made
milk first
shot second
ice last...
cool down esp. gradually so as not to shock it.
The pumps work great for us! What seems to be the problem with using them? We have found that with ANY liquid chocolate sauce (Monin, DaVinci, etc) we add a couple pumps of vanilla syrup to add to the flavor. I hope this helps!
Also reduces icemelt dilution this way.
Deferio said:
Vahlrona 70% cocoa powder mixed equally with fine sugar and the smallest amount of salt to taste...
Awesome.
steam in milk.
FWIW...iced beverages should always be made
milk first
shot second
ice last...
cool down esp. gradually so as not to shock it.

I had never even thought of the shock factor - we may have to try this. We had always put ice first, then milk, then spro/flav. and mix well. Hmmm interesting indeed.
The cafe I work started out as a chocolatier and we make our own hot fudge sauce, which is then mixed 20 ounces of hot fudge to a little under 3\4 gallon of whole milk, and 18oz to the same amount of skim milk.

To make a large batch we mix 1 gallon fudge with 4 gallons milk in a 5 gallon plastic mixing drum with a spout. My personal mix method is to pour half a gallon into the drum, and then pour the gallon of fudge over that and mix well with an extra long whisk, then pour the rest of the milk in while stirring well. Then we refill gallon milk jugs that have been rinsed well, sanitized and dried, leaving about an inch of space at the top so the jug can be shaken if the fudge settles a little.

On a typical afternoon rush my cafe will make about 120 mochas and hot chocolates, and at approx 12 ounces we end up using at least 10 gallons of our fudge milk in 4 hours.

This ratio works out to about 2oz of fudge per 12 ounce finished drink.

This works well for us considering we have the fixings to make hotfudge due to the chocolate-making kitchen and our use for it as an icecream topping
Recently I've tried to save every bit of chocolate in the leftover bottles of Ghirardelli chocolate sauce so when I've poured as much as possible out I'll pour a cup of milk in the bottle & shake it up real good. Then I'll save that for when I make my next mocha & just heat this chocolate milk instead of adding chocolate to the cup. Steaming the chocolate milk really gives it a good flavor. Of course, you do have to make sure you clean the wand well afterwards & purge the extra milk out so you dont end up with a little chocolate stuck in the wand. Not fun to clean later!
I share my trade secret... 1oz. Ghiradelli on bottom of cup
2 tablespoons of "light",unsweetened cocoa powder steamed in milk
macchiato...
whipped cream & unsweetend cocoa on top with slight drizzle of sauce
A shop that I used to work at here in portland tried various single origin chocolates and finally settled on a single-origin Venezuelan chocolate (http://www.oregonlive.com/mix/index.ssf/2008/11/23_things_you_need_...)
Pretty sure they just use it for their hot cocos, but it seems to make sense to try single origin chocolates that work well by accentuating and complimenting the espresso blend that you are using.
Bre said:
A shop that I used to work at here in portland tried various single origin chocolates and finally settled on a single-origin Venezuelan chocolate (http://www.oregonlive.com/mix/index.ssf/2008/11/23_things_you_need_...)
Pretty sure they just use it for their hot cocos, but it seems to make sense to try single origin chocolates that work well by accentuating and complimenting the espresso blend that you are using.

They use it for the mochas, too. Money.
thought so. wasn't sure tho.
they would.

Ray said:
Bre said:
A shop that I used to work at here in portland tried various single origin chocolates and finally settled on a single-origin Venezuelan chocolate (http://www.oregonlive.com/mix/index.ssf/2008/11/23_things_you_need_...)
Pretty sure they just use it for their hot cocos, but it seems to make sense to try single origin chocolates that work well by accentuating and complimenting the espresso blend that you are using.

They use it for the mochas, too. Money.

I just found this recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/mocha-sauce-102285

It looks good, because it's made from stuff with a bunch of preservatives and etc. And you can say that you make your chocolate sauce from scratch! I'm going to do it with decaf coffee though, so kids and people unable to have caffeine will be able to enjoy it.

Lauren

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