Tesla Engineer Reinvents Chocolate Chip for Maximum Taste and Melt (nypost.com) 86
"Silicon Valley, long obsessed with computer chips, is now disrupting chocolate ones," writes the New York Post:
Remy Labesque, a Los-Angeles based industrial engineer working for Elon Musk's Tesla, has re-engineered the chocolate chip for the optimization-obsessed set.
Thirty bucks gets you 17.6 ounces, or about 142, of the expertly forged chocolate geodes, which are molded to "melt at the right rate," according to Todd Masonis, co-founder of San Francisco's Dandelion Chocolate, which makes and sells the chips... Labesque's flattened pyramid-like structures feature thick middles and thinly tapered edges. A 15-degree slope, according to blueprints for the morsel, creates a glossy finish when baked.
Masonis said it took years to realize Labesque's original multifaceted mold. "We did 3-D renderings of different options for shapes, test prints of a few molds and, of course, baking tests," he said. The goal? To emphasize the complex chips' cacao bean essence, which is said to have notes of chocolate buttercream frosting and banana. "We found that if you take a huge chunk of chocolate and put it in your mouth, that taste can be overwhelming," said Masonis. "The flat shape helps slow down the experience."
The single-origin chocolate is carefully tempered — a process where chocolate is heated then cooled to create a hard shell — and is designed to melt without ruining the structural integrity of its mold-cast hard edge.
The perfect chip weight, according to the engineers, is 4.05 grams.
The primitive shape of our current chocolate chips "isn't a designed shape," Labesque tells Bloomberg. "It's a product of an industrial manufacturing process."
Thirty bucks gets you 17.6 ounces, or about 142, of the expertly forged chocolate geodes, which are molded to "melt at the right rate," according to Todd Masonis, co-founder of San Francisco's Dandelion Chocolate, which makes and sells the chips... Labesque's flattened pyramid-like structures feature thick middles and thinly tapered edges. A 15-degree slope, according to blueprints for the morsel, creates a glossy finish when baked.
Masonis said it took years to realize Labesque's original multifaceted mold. "We did 3-D renderings of different options for shapes, test prints of a few molds and, of course, baking tests," he said. The goal? To emphasize the complex chips' cacao bean essence, which is said to have notes of chocolate buttercream frosting and banana. "We found that if you take a huge chunk of chocolate and put it in your mouth, that taste can be overwhelming," said Masonis. "The flat shape helps slow down the experience."
The single-origin chocolate is carefully tempered — a process where chocolate is heated then cooled to create a hard shell — and is designed to melt without ruining the structural integrity of its mold-cast hard edge.
The perfect chip weight, according to the engineers, is 4.05 grams.
The primitive shape of our current chocolate chips "isn't a designed shape," Labesque tells Bloomberg. "It's a product of an industrial manufacturing process."
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Root of all human progress (Score:1)
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If Tesla's 'Dear Leader' thinks that the Egypian Pyramids were built by Aliens, then this is not that big a news item. Oh wait... everyone likes Choc Chip Cookies!
Research and development (Score:2)
R&D is a process which sometimes something Completely different is discovered.
This could be from researching alternatives to plastic. And controlling their meltig point. We want to melt this material so it can fit in a mold. But we do not want it to melt as a finished product.
We have had interesting products come out of R&D from companies that do not specialize in those areas.
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Seems someone was overpaid and over praised, and got too big a head. No, not Elon Musk, the other Tesla guy.
Re: Too much free time? (Score:2)
Sound unrealistic. That kind of people are like highlanders. There can only be one! Thou shalt suck off no other gods beside me!
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He's doomed, that product will be gone within a year and people will copy his design in less than that because I doubt that you can patent a fundamental geometric shape. Well, you can patent it - you can patent anything - but will it stand up under a challenged reexamination?
I have a mild curiosity as to what they taste
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I have a mild curiosity as to what they taste like, but I doubt they're worlds better than Ghirardelli,
Yes, not only is the shape obsessively made, but each batch of chocolate is made from a single plantation, and the variety they can get from chocolate beans is amazing. If you ever have a chance to go into one of their stores, it's amazing. Certainly one of the top chocolatiers in the world, if not the best, but they only make dark chocolate.
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Re: Too much free time? (Score:1)
You misspelled "top sobberiers".
I bet you all the chocolate you can eat that you cannot tell what is what in an ABX test! And that all your "notes of" are hallicinated and trivially inflienced by what you have been told before.
"Only dark chocolate" already makes it obvious.
Did you know that it was researched, that people who say they "like" bitter tastes, like beer (IPA) chocolate (dark), coffee (black), etc, do so, because their taste buds for bitterness are almost completely *dead*? (Ditto for eating hot
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I bet you all the chocolate you can eat that you cannot tell what is what in an ABX test!
Between Dandelion and Ghirardelli? You might as well say I can't tell the difference between red and blue. Specific "notes" are harder to tell, but I don't really describe chocolate or coffee in that way.
I'm pretty sure that even you can tell the difference between how good instant coffee actually smells and how bad real coffee actually tastes.
yep, just a fad (Score:2)
They're the new and improved "Pet Rock" of the chocolate world...
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Maybe they can be the new Tamagotchi: incorporate a bio-Bluetooth, sync them with your phone, and you can feed them, and micro-purchase clothes and houses and take them for walks and incorporate them with Animal Crossing!
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I'm guessing they are good (as you say), but why make the great chocolate into chips in the first place? Chocolate chips are generally for use in baking - where they will be mixed with many other ingredients that will impact the flavor. This seems like getting a $200 bottle of bourbon and using it to make a whiskey sour.
I'd much rather enjoy chocolate like that on its own.
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Fair enough. I'm skeptical, but agree that trying something of theirs is the only way to know.
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The question is, Just how long is the self-driving mode on the Tesla? He must have turned it all the way to 11
AI and 3d printing (Score:2)
I would almost invest, but I see no mention of AI and 3d printing..
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Now go and invest like there is no tomorrow.
Was expecting that also (Score:1)
I see no mention of AI and 3d printing..
I was 100% sure as I started reading the summary it was going to claim the shape had been developed by an AI. Same as you, sadly disappointed.
As for the 3D printing... your message led me to search, and sure enough there actually is such a thing as a chocolate 3D printer [amazon.com]!!
Frankly if I could get one of those for half the price or less I would be way more tempted than a real 3D printer, as at least you could eat your mistakes. And your successes!
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Chocolate is a necessary nutrient? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sweet News: Chocolate May Help Your Heart [webmd.com] (July 23, 2020)
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What are the bets that culpably mentally restrained person will interpret this as "eat vast amounts of palm fat chocolate non stop once a week" instead of "eat moderate amounts of a certain subtype of chocoloate that has been determined to be good for your heart"?
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"eat vast amounts of palm fat chocolate non stop every hour on the hour"
Fixed that for you.
Now please excuse me. I need to go raid my stash of brown-dyed, vaguely bitter-flavored sugar, unadulterated with flour and trans-fats, and lumped together employing palm fat or some such substance.
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"eat vast amounts of palm fat chocolate non stop every hour on the hour"
Fixed that for you.
Now please excuse me. I need to go raid my stash of brown-dyed, vaguely bitter-flavored sugar, unadulterated with flour and trans-fats, and lumped together employing palm fat or some such substance.
But if you don't stop it only counts as once
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Palm oil isn't necessary, the cacao bean has sufficient all on its own. The reason palm, vegetable, etc. oil is added is because they've squeezed the expensive cacao "liquor" out of it to sell separately. That's the same reason why Jiff and other garbage peanut butters add oil, the peanut oil has been separated out and sold so they replace it with something cheaper. (Oh, and the reason Jiff is full of sugar is that sugar costs less per pound than peanuts.)
There's no reason to adulterate chocolate except
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Sweet News: Chocolate May Help Your Heart [webmd.com] (July 23, 2020)
"This is an observational study, meaning we cannot conclude [a cause-and-effect] relationship that eating chocolate can prevent or reduce heart disease"
Re: Chocolate is a necessary nutrient? (Score:2)
Nide newspeak for "advertisement".
No Thanks. I block all cookies... (Score:4, Funny)
Just one word: (Score:3)
Re: Just one word: (Score:2)
If that link does not go to the AvE review / teardown [youtu.be], I'm angry!
"LOOK AT IT! THE AIR DOESN'T WANNA COME OUT!"
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Even dead scientists got into it: "A simpler and cheaper implementation, suggested Einstein, would likely have produced much the same quality of juice at a price several hundred US dollars cheaper."
"Maximum" taste? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe these chips have similar properties, the shape changes how they "cook" which can impact the overall flavor.
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Shape does matter when cooking. In Peru there are three dishes which have almost identical ingredients, saltado, estofado and mataska, but which come out tasting totally different from each other because the vegetables are cut differently.
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I'll have to check those out, though I often have a mental smile when I read a Mexican food menu. Meat, cheese, beans and rice with a tortilla. Two pages and 52 line items for: Meat, cheese, beans and rice with a tortilla.
Not a knock, I love Mexifood. Just a humorous-to-me observation.
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In Peru 'tortilla' means an omelet, they don't have an equivalent unless you count the potatoes that are part of every meal (potatoes are native to the Andes, they grow over 2000 varieties). Beans are mostly eaten on the coast, they take too long to cook at the higher altitudes. Meat is more often mutton than beef in the highlands, it's goat and fish on the coast, and water buffalo and fish in the jungle, but chicken and duck everywhere. And everywhere there is the constant mixing of the areas, a special
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I'll check it out. How spicy-hot does it tend to be, from 1-6?
1. Gringo
2. Have a cerveza handy.
3. Have a glass of leche handy.
4. Have a high tolerance.
5. Now you're just messin' with us.
6. Professionals only, don't try this at home, kids.
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For most foods it's a 1) because the hot sauce (aji) is separate and you only put on as much as you enjoy/tolerate. The exception would be the ocopa-based foods like papa a la Huancaina, sacta and aji de gallina, which are bathed in an incredible peanut hot sauce made with an Andean herb called huacatai. The array of hot sauces available is mind boggling, some kinds are only made to eat with a specific dish.
If you're in the Seattle area I highly recommend San Fernando Roast Chicken, either location. Poll
Re: "Maximum" taste? (Score:1)
Re:"Maximum" taste? (Score:4, Insightful)
The size of the chips are also way too big for my liking for the right cookie/chocolate balance, which is funny since the article mentions they acknowledge too big of a chunk overwhelms your mouth. Obviously my preferences don't matter any more than theirs do, but it should point out that there's just no way to engineer the perfect chocolate chip because such a thing does not exist.
I totally agree - especially with the part about the chips being too big. A good chocolate chip cookie is about balance among flavours - the non-chocolate part is a key component of the overall experience. Big chips degrade the rest of the cookie into a mere vehicle - in which case I'd rather just eat the chocolate.
The shape of the chips isn't even a concern. Size of the chips, the quality of the chocolate used, the quality and flavour of the rest of the cookie, and the degree of 'doneness', are much more important.
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C'mon, its all marketing. This is how they get some people to pay more for a product they already buy. With looming lockdowns during a pandemic its a perfect time to release a new baking product. This whole thing is 'engineered' to make money, the rest is just fluff.
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Who wouldn't want to buy a Tesla Tollhouse Cookie?! Think of the synergy! Engineered to go with the new truck, all angular lines of chocolate.
Re:"Maximum" taste? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because "made for people who like chocolate that tastes like bananas" doesn't sell as well as claiming this guy has some kind of mysterious divine tesla-insipired scientific knowledge that makes his chocolate chips taste better than everyone else's.
Size matters! (Score:2)
I prefer leather and tobacco flavors to fruity flavors in chocolate.
Maybe I am just not refined enough of chocolate enthusiast, but I kind of hope you are joking here. I am not sure I want to try an S&M Club flavored chocolate line.
The size of the chips are also way too big for my liking
Here I am in total agreement! I looked at the images, and next to some real cookies those chips seemed way too large. I've tried larger chunk chocolate chips before (which were more like small cubes) and didn't like i
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... I am not sure I want to try an S&M Club flavored chocolate line...
Well done, the plot twist here was totally unexpected.
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Let me be cynical... Because they are idiot scientific folks. By idiot I mean the inability to comprehend that this is not science and there is one single one best tasting anything. However, since this is Silicon Valley, not surprised whatsoever. I have worked there enough to understand that they don't understand there exists a world outside of their bubble.
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Since they're more crystal shaped, they inherit healing powers -- Duuhhh!
Like, get with the energy field and like let it like flow over you...
What's my mantra again?
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...What's my mantra again?
Mmmmmmmletherantobakko
"...up to 100 hours a week..." (Score:2)
Maybe it's a case of no free time, having a habit of working too much.
Elon Musk has expected his employees to work many, many hours:
Elon Musk: 'You're gonna go a little bonkers if you work 120 hours a week' [cnbc.com] (Nov, 5, 2018)
Elon Musk pulls 80- to 90-hour work weeks — here's how that impacts the body and the mind [cnbc.com] (Dec. 3, 2018)
Quote: "Musk has acknowledged that his team has also put in long hours this year, sometimes up to 100 hours
Reply to the first comment in this story (Score:2)
BTDT. (Score:2)
Claims chocolate chip will have level 5 autonomy (Score:1)
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Nice snark, but, you know...I think I'd buy one. It'd have to do 2 at once and be smaller than a breadbox.
click bait check list: (Score:3)
[ ] Summary has Tesla and Elon and Musk
[ ] Summary has keywords close together
Passed, cleared for front page.
And in real units (Score:2, Insightful)
You get about half a kilogram of chocolate chips for 25.50 Euros.
while I can understand where he's coming from... (Score:5, Informative)
...I pretty much repudiate the entire idea.
Chocolate chips exist to symbiotically join with cookie dough to make something much much greater than the sum of its parts.
This "chunk" design (it's hardly a chip) comes from a laudable motivation, but not everything is better when engineered to the nth degree and then offered by some dandified SanFran startup.
Further, have they never had a warm cookie right out of the oven? The last thing I want is a DOUBLE SIZED lava-hot glob of chocolate in my cookie.
A package of chocolate chips is 12oz, and about $10. So I can get 2x the chips, plonk them into the (perfect) Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe printed directly in the package where even plebians can get it, and have 2x the cookies at the end.
That is a goddamned win even if I somehow am missing the the delicate notes of banana and butter cream frosting in single-sourced chocolate.
Re: while I can understand where he's coming from. (Score:2)
You can still hallucinate them, just like they did! :)
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Thank you and your fellow commenters. The proper chip-to-dough Cookie ratio is just as important as other Articles on this site.
Note that the previous Article is "Google Starts Testing Its Replacement for Third-Party Cookies for Chrome". Coincidence? I think not.
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You said Toll House. OMG. You actually said Toll House. UGH. I bought a bag of those recently by mistake. How bad could it be I thought?
Who knows, the base for their chocolate could be Hershey's Dark. LOL.
So far the best place I've found to get chips is from Chocolate World in Orlando. They import their own raw ingredients. Expensive but worth it. This is not like mast brothers that we later found out were fake importers. This place you can visit and see them making it.
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https://www.delish.com/food-ne... [delish.com]
If you're eating the chips, they're terrible.
It's the mix with the cookie that makes them perfect.
That said, they may have changed:
9. Nestlé may have secretly changed the recipe...
Dedicated bakers have been up in arms in recent years, claiming that recipes they've baked with Toll House semi-sweet morsels for years no longer turn out the same. They blame under-wraps tweaks to the chocolate chips' ingredients, though Nestlé maintains that any changes have
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Really? I thought that was my imagination. I went to far as to make sure the bag I had was new. Checked the oven. I have a $2700 oven/range, temperature controlled. I think it's 7 or 8 years old now. It was right on. Stuff comes out of that oven amazing.
So it's not just me. Good to know.
I've had good luck with the Ghiradelli chips for super market chips.
Bullshit (Score:1)
This is bullshit. Tempered chocolate is cast, not poured. You can buy poly moulds for callets for twenty bucks.
Four years to make a mold? What assholes. You can ship a 3d to Micelli and they'll mail you your mould in a month.
I live walking distance from Dandelion, and have tried these. I've also melted Dandelion's chocolate into standard Callebaut callet shapes.
The Callebaut shape is vastly superior
Stop sucking Tesla's dick. No, they aren't good at Chocolate.
Uh... (Score:3)
What's bullshit is pretty much everything you say.
Cast vs poured: How the heck do you think things are cast? You melt the substance and pour it into the cast/mold.
Micelli mailing a mould in a month: That's when you have a 3d to ship to them. The 4 years is developing various 3d designs, getting the molds made, testing, then iterating.
Callebaut shape: Googling it, seems to be a mostly standard chip shape. Meh, I'll leave "superiority" to personal preference. It shouldn't be tough to beat the "standard
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Nope. It's bullshit. There's only so much surface area and taste buds on the tongue. No amount of fancy geometry is going to make it any better. Besides, the Hershey Kiss method is good enough.
Er, are we talking about the chocolate or the dick here?
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Yeah, but no. (Score:2)
Huge... (Score:2)
Looking at the pic in TFA, those chips only look reasonable until you realize just how huge the cookie is. Those are huge chips. I make chocolate chip cookies quite a lot, and I would not want such a big piece of chocolate in the cookie.
Frankly, this sounds like someone who thinks that being a "Tesla engineer" means that their chocolate chips will count as a high-tech produce and attract VCs.
notes of chocolate buttercream frosting and banana (Score:2)
Designed for consumption. (Score:2)
What the engineer is missing here is that food is designed to maximize consumption. More to the point, anything that will make you want to eat more is included in the cookie design. How the cookie breaks down (in your mouth) is critical to this objective because there is a viscosity of a food where the human brain does not classify it as being either a liquid or a solid and therefore does recognize it as food at all. It's not an all or nothing gambit but the perfect result is feeling as if you haven't ea
Re: Designed for consumption. (Score:2)
WTF? So *this* is why American food is how it is? ... Seriously, nobody here in all Europe would even come up with this shit!
*Maximize consumption*?
Maximize deliciousness, duh. Maximize healthiness, sure. Maximize profit, sure if you are a business with no soul, but never if you are a chef or other artist or scientist working with food. ... *consumption*!?! ... but it was enough to know that this counts as attempted murder
But maximizing
Jesus fucking Christ. I've read *one* story by a "feeder" fetish nutjob,
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WTF? So *this* is why American food is how it is?
Yes, it's the "bliss point" that is the issue. It's not a secret: https://www.secondnature.io/gu... [secondnature.io]
Maximize profit, sure if you are a business with no soul,
That's corporate America for you.
but never if you are a chef or other artist or scientist working with food.
pay enough and you could find people to set people on fire all day.
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Interesting. Science at work. Here's a summ from wiki:
Bliss point (food)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the formulation of food products, the bliss point is the amount of an ingredient such as salt, sugar, or fat which optimizes deliciousness. Pioneering work on the bliss point was carried out by American market researcher and psychophysicist Howard Moskowitz, known for his successful work in product creation and optimization for foods ranging from spaghetti sauce to soft drinks.[1] Moskowitz descri
Missing point (Score:2)
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I'd say that chip density is probably a problem that nearly every chocolate chip cookie maker has tackled to some extent.
Besides, making custom chips means you can sell them, as per the article. Simply changing the recipe to alter the density in the cookie/dough doesn't let you do that.
Besides, the shape of things is apparently this engineer's thing.
Cookie Clicker: Achievement unlocked (Score:2)
One step closer to the grandmapocalypse!
Easier solution: (Score:2)
Overwheming?
Well, just pick a weaker type of coca bean. Or add milk (powder).
. . .
Typical case of enginerding gone off the edge and deep end. ;)
(And before you get all offended like a mentally underdeveloped toddler [the ONLY case when that is legitimate]: I'm saying this, because I've been there too many times too. ... [And on the getting offended, too, until a decade ago.] :)
If he sells chocolate for $30 a pound (Score:2)
then he is a genius, admit it.
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Good chocolate is good chocolate. It might be worth it.
They'd have to do an awful lot of selling to make me think it's worth it.
I've had some of the best in the world.
Not invented here (Score:2)
A classic case.
Not invented here (NIH) is a stance adopted by social, corporate, or institutional cultures that avoids using or buying already existing products, research, standards, or knowledge because of their external origins and costs, such as royalties. Research illustrates a strong bias against ideas from the outside.
Not invented here [wikipedia.org].
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NIH can be used for good or evil.
Re: Not invented here (Score:2)
STOLEN IDEA... (Score:1)