When is chocolate more than just chocolate? When it’s molecular gastronomy as well.

Made “popular” by Heston Blumenthal at the seminal Fat Duck restaurant in the UK as well as Ferran Adria at el Bulli in Spain, molecular gastronomy uses laboratory techniques to “deconstruct” ingredients and use them in unusual ways to create textures and flavors not possible without an understanding of the science behind food chemistry.

Dominique and Cindy Duby, whom many of you will know from their appearances in pastry competitions aired on Food Network, apply molecular gastronomy techniques to produce many of their confections. While some of the flavor combinations can may seem extreme on the surface (for example a passion fruit and bonito caramel) the Duby’s do not deliberately set out to shock. Says Dominique, “With these techniques, the possibility for extreme flavors is easy. But we tend to think of flavor as an orchestra with one or two flavors as the lead instruments and other flavors as supporting players. The goal is not to create a cacophony of flavor but rather a pleasing melody. We try to create a sense of comfort, but also try to create surprise and an excitement. The flavors we introduce are not overly bold so they are a pleasant as opposed to a shocking surprise.”

Wild Sweets is definitely a collaborative effort, but Dominique’s interest lay more in the direction of molecular gastronomy where Cindy tends to work on flavors and textures. They both recognize that there are cultural differences in taste perception, and that there are also age and gender differences, too. Children have a very different approach to taste than adults, tending to have more intense sensory perceptions but very little taste memory; when confronted by a cruciferous vegetable such as broccoli they may say they don’t like it (and why) without associating it with the taste or visual memory of broccoli. In adults, the ability to taste slowly diminishes over time, but much broader experience and taste memories compensate to a great extent.

Dominique and Cindy Duby in their lab

Sixty percent of taste is smell, and women tend to have a better sense of smell than men, and some tastes are more tactile than olfactory. (Albert Adria, the pastry chef at el Bulli, once indicated that he has a taste memory for over 800 foods—clearly an exception, but one of the reasons that he is very good at what he does.) Heat, for example, is a tactile “flavor” whereas lemongrass is more of a smell than a taste. The goal is to stimulate the tongue as well as the nose.

The Duby’s Wild Sweets definitely do stimulate the tongue as well as the nose, not to mention the imagination as you ask yourself, “How did they ever think of that?” One example in their current collection is their praline (see picture below) - at once familiar but unlike any other praline you’ve tasted. The filling is a hazelnut praline (a praline is traditionally a nut cooked in boiling sugar, let to cool, and then ground into a paste, usually with milk chocolate) made with cocoa butter, chocolate, and an infused olive oil with anise on top. The filling is very soft, almost liquid and when the hard shell is bitten into the praline gushes into the mouth.

Wild Sweets’ Praline

Another piece in their current collection is called Grand Cru (see picture below) which is filled with a 70% dark chocolate ganache with a twist - there are no dairy ingredients in the ganache. Cream and butter are usually seen as crucial ingredients in creating velvety-smooth ganaches, but to a molecular gastronomist, a ganache is merely an emulsion—a mixture of fat and A (another) liquid. Dairy ingredients have specific flavors and textures, so by creating chocolate emulsions without dairy ingredients there is the ability to create new flavors and new textures. For example, with cinnamon, some of the aromatic compounds are water soluble while others are soluble in oil. By creating an extract with only one liquid some of the flavor components are missing. By using both types of extracts and creating emulsions with them, new flavor experiences for cinnamon can be achieved.

Wild Sweets’ Grand Cru

If you’re interested in learning more about the Duby’s approach to flavor, then you should seriously consider purchasing their award-winning cookbook Wild Sweets: Exotic Desserts and Wine Pairings. Charlie Trotter, in his foreword to the book says, “Wild Sweets has caused me to rethink my approach to dessert, but, even more importantly, it has inspired me to re-examine all of my cuisine. Now that’s a remarkable accomplishment.”

Wild Sweets, which won an award as best Food and Wine book in the world in 2004, is beautifully photographed and designed, and every recipe is fully described, is accompanied by a color photo, and concludes with a wine recommendation, which makes the book extremely unusual. Interspersed between chapters are sections describing processes such as gelatinization, fermentation, emulsification, tempering, and plating and presentation.

In truth, though the Dubys say they wrote the book to be accessible to just about anyone, many of the recipes should only be contemplated by the serious amateur or professional chef. One thing that separates professional pastry chefs from the rest of us is that their definition of simple is different from mere mortals. Take one recipe: Poblano-caramel parfait with fireweed honey-roasted tomatoes and chili matches (and this is hardly one of the most complex recipes in the book). If you find yourselves watching the pastry competitions on Food Network or deliberately seek out restaurants with celebrity pastry chefs then this book is a “Should Have” for you, even if you’re not a pastry chef yourself. For, as Charlie Trotter said, it may change your idea of what dessert is and shatter preconceived notions that you might have about flavor combinations that don’t work, like apples and eggplant or cabbage and grapes.

Wild Sweets’ new collection of product should be available for sale online by mid-September. Surf on over to www.dcduby.com to learn more about their chocolates (and other confections) and to place an order. Signed copies of The book Wild Sweets can be ordered from their site; unsigned copies are available through The Chocolate Co-Op.

(This article first appeared in the October 2004 issue of the Newsletter Chocolate Society Newsletter in Chocolatier Magazine.)