You'd have thought that this idea would be baked already, but given the continuing disappointment that is mint-choc-chip, apparently not.

Okay, so apparently one of the things which makes chocolate so pleasurable is that it melts at close to body temperature. Which is fine, until someone decided that it'd be nice in ice-cream. Unfortunately, it isn't, particularly, because it just takes too long to warm up to melting temperature. So it remains a crunchy but relatively tasteless mass.

I propose a new formulation of chocolate with a melting temperature of perhaps 4 degrees C, suitable for ice-cream (and Antarctic researchers).

How could this lower melting-temperature be achieved? I'm no food chemist or chocolatier, so this may be impossible while retaining flavour. But maybe blending in some of the more liquid oils may help. Failing that, I'd have to go with the rather more half-baked solution of a machine for warming and injecting chocolate lumps immediately prior to consumption.
-- Loris, Jun 08 2008

Copenhaagen-Dasz Ice-Cream Copenhaagen-Dasz_20Ice_20Cream
Looks like [Loris] has invented a primary constituent. [8th of 7, Jun 09 2008]

Self-heating choc lumps, using calcium carbide or something like that?
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Jun 08 2008


Chocolate crystallises in six different forms, and each form has a different melting point. Form V is the preferred structure for chocolate that is to be eaten. It melts at about 34 degrees C - low enough to melt in the mouth, but high enough to resist melting on the shelf. The lowest-melting-point form melts at 17 degrees - probably still too high for an ingredient of ice cream.
-- FishFinger, Jun 09 2008


Tell me more about these chocolate allotropes. Do they taste different?
-- Texticle, Jun 09 2008


No. Allotropy is a purely physical phenomenon (Rhombic and Monoclinic sulphur, Grey and White Tin, Graphite and Diamond) and does not affect the underlying chemistry.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 09 2008


Does it being a physical phenomenon mean it won't taste different? It's a mixture and there may be different melting points anyway. I think you probably have cocoa butter in mind. It can be an oil or a fat depending on the form of its crystals.
-- nineteenthly, Jun 09 2008


Sounds like another case of Bohr "complementarity". It isn't possible to say if the chocolate is a fat or an oil until it's tasted; the wave function collapses, the uncertanty is resolved, the cat is dead/alive .....

Danish quantum chocolate, anyone ?
-- 8th of 7, Jun 09 2008


Stracciatella-9 ?
-- jutta, Jun 10 2008


I might be naive but I was thinking that the melting temperature could be reduced by mixing in a variety of low melting-temperature ingredients. Much like those low-melting-temperature melting spoon alloys.
-- Loris, Jun 10 2008


Eutectic alloys, like solder. Yes, certianly.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 10 2008


Find the right kind of chocolate, and it will turn the whole world into chocolate.
-- nineteenthly, Jun 10 2008



random, halfbakery