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Small batch bean to bar chocolate in Birmingham, AL.

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Massaman Crunch Vegan Milk Chocolate Bar

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Vegan milk chocolate massaman curry bar
Everything that went into the Massaman curry bar.

Recently I took a class on making Thai inspired bean to bar chocolate using inclusions. The first bar inspired by this class was a Massaman crunch vegan milk chocolate bar. If you would like to read more about the Thai inspired chocolate class that I took, check out the Inclusion-craft Thai Inspired Chocolates Workshop post, for more information about this bar, keep reading.

Inspiration

Massaman curry is full of warming spices that remind me of fall. Usually it is milder than other curries with only a touch of heat. It is a creamy dish with coconut milk, tender vegetables and crunchy peanuts. I really wanted this bar to represent these warm spices but in a very approachable and familiar way.

Making a Vegan Milk Chocolate

Massaman curry brittle for the vegan milk chocolate bar.
Massaman Curry Brittle

The base for this vegan milk chocolate is made up of coconut and peanuts. The chocolate is sweet and creamy like milk chocolate, but without the dairy. To balance that creaminess I candied the peanuts with tamarind and palm sugar to mimic the sweet and sour broth in Massaman curry. We then ground the tamarind candied peanuts and coconut with fruity coco nibs from Peru to make a smooth vegan milk chocolate base.

The crunch in this bar comes from both popped brown rice, and a Massaman curry brittle. To make the brittle I steeped coconut oil with many of the spices that you would find in a Massaman curry paste; cardamom, coriander, white pepper, cumin, mace, fennel, cloves, Thai red chili peppers and orange zest. After steeping the spiced coconut oil we combined it with caramelizing sugar and a touch of baking soda to aerate it. The curry brittle was then poured into a thin layer while it hardened and cooled. This thin, crunchy brittle along with the puffed brown rice is mixed in with the coconut peanut vegan milk chocolate before molding.

When assembled this bar is creamy, crunchy and sweet with those warming curry notes. It’s a vegan milk chocolate crunch bar elevated to an exotic get-away while sitting in a familiar comforting place. Stay tuned to find out where you can get one!

Check out our other Thai Inclusion bar; the Vegan Thai Green Curry bar here.

Vegan Chocolate Meets Thai Green Curry

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The Inspiration

I was so excited the night before my Thai Inspired inclusion class that I bought every ingredient that Nat said we could possibly need at Home Town Supermarket in Birmingham. Soon after I realized I had many more ingredients than I could ever go through. I found this recipe from Hot Thai Kitchen for green curry paste and started cooking. As I ground herbs and spices I had never used before like Makrut Lime leaves and galangal I wanted to some how find a way to capture these bright, layered nuanced flavors in my chocolate. I also wanted to maintain the smooth texture of my single origin chocolate bars which led to this layered approach of vegan chocolates.

The Approach

I love Jasmine rice and will even eat it cold out of the fridge. Jasmine rice is so fragrant and melds in with a good curry while also standing up to it. I couldn’t imagine a Thai curry bar without it, so I started there for my base. The bottom layer of this bar is reminiscent of white chocolate, yet dairy free. We replace the milk in this vegan white chocolate with ground jasmine rice and dried coconut. The resulting chocolate is barely sweet yet incredibly fragrant.

Green curry inspired vegan chocolate bar surrounded by Thai spices.
Green Curry Inspired Bar

The next layer represents the green curry itself. We take our 80% single origin Pangoa Peru dark chocolate and blend in toasted cumin, coriander, galangal, lemongrass and green Thai chilies. We add these spice to the chocolate grinder in the final stages, providing earthy flavor notes and soft heat. These bold spices and slightly acidic chocolate balance each other nicely.

For a final drizzle I used a technique Nat taught us to infuse cocoa butter. For my version I toasted Makrut lime leaves with lemongrass from my garden and combined it with cocoa butter from Ecuador. This mixture then infused in a sous vide machine for several hours. Citrusy and bright, into the grinder it went along with raw cane sugar and more coconut. The citrusy oil slick on top of a bowl of curry is just what I was after with this layer.

The Final Bar

Tempering three chocolates at once was a real challenge, as anyone who has worked with chocolate will know. When you eat this bar it’s snappy, smooth and creamy. The taste is very surprising as the layers play out one by one. First, a not too sweet or assertive jasmine rice layer, then the more bold and earthy dark chocolate green curry layer, followed by just a drizzle of bright citrusy aromatic coconut vegan white chocolate.

Check out our other Thai Curry inspired chocolate; the Massaman Curry Crunch bar here.