The appearance and textural characteristic of couverture praline chocolate filled with carrageenan-based hydrogel

Praline is a type of chocolate with fat-based and water-based filling. This chocolate is becoming more popular in Indonesia and gaining intentions of small-scale chocolate producers. In this study, couverture praline chocolate with water-based filling was produced using manual method. The aim of this study was to investigate the best treatment to create the most stable praline shell filled with carrageenan-based hydrogel. The variables used in this study was duration of shell formation (10, 15, 20 minutes) during manual tempering process. Chocolate characteristics, namely hardness, colour and particle size were measured at day 0, 4, 8, 12. The result showed that chocolate hardness increased as the duration of shell formation also increased. Chocolate lightness was decreased as the duration of crystal maturation increased. Whereas, particle size was relatively high and tended to fluctuate.