Thin chocolate coating for healthy candy bar?

[dylan32]

Problem with carob as a coating is it's made from hydrogenated oil as a substitute for cocoa butter.

I'll try using high cocoa dark chocolate, but how would you go about spraying with chocolate?

[m brown]

thin down with cocoa butter.
play with your food, see how it works!

[stumaniac]

I am trying to do a similar thing to what you are trying to do--I am making vegan nutrition bars with a high-protein core and trying to figure out how to coat them with a chocolate (or chocolate-like) coating. I am wondering if something can be substituted for the oil (cocoa butter, hydrogenated oil) which would not make it true chocolate but nevertheless compatible with a healthy bar. Perhaps glycerine, some sugar alcohol preparation, some type of vegetable gum? I have often used applesauce or prunes to substitute for oil in baking but suspect that for chocolate, this type of substitution wouldn't work. Here are some links that talk about some ways to accomplish a chocolate coating...

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/arc...02/1002DE.html

http://www.sallys-place.com/food/col..._tempering.htm

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/arc...04/0204AP.html

[scott123]

The glycerine would be too sticky. It's great for adding moisture to the bar itself, but I don't think it would work as a coating.

Sugar alcohols have similar properties to sugar. Sugar doesn't give you the properties of fat. You could, in theory, make a sugar alcohol fondant which you could enrobe your bar in. That would be fat free.

I've seen xanthan gum based cream cheese frostings that people seem to enjoy, but the gum was less of a fat substitute and more of a corn starch/powdered sugar sub. Xanthan has a tendency to get slimy if used to excess, same with guar. Acacia has a very sugary mouthfeel, but for that kind of price, you might as well go with a sugar alcohol.

A cocoa fondant sounds like a winner.