We look at exactly what is ruby chocolate, how is it used, and most importantly, what does it taste like? A complete guide to this pretty pink chocolate that is all the rage.
What's in this post
What is ruby chocolate?
Ruby chocolate, also known as ruby RBI, is the newest chocolate discovery in 80 years. It is the fourth chocolate type after white, milk and dark chocolate.
It was introduced to us by Barry Callebaut in 2017 and available to purchase from January 2018. Australia was one of the first countries for the rollout of the new chocolate variety, hitting Australian shores in September of that year.
According to Callebaut’s website, the ruby beans’ origin is from Brazil, Ecuador, and Ivory Coast
Is it naturally pink?
When Callebaut introduced ruby chocolate in September 2017, at a private event in Shanghai, confusion ran supreme. It simply looked like white chocolate with pink colouring.
How Callebaut make ruby chocolate is a trade secret. Genetic modification has been mentioned and denied by Barry Callebaut. There has been speculation in the industry that unfermented cocoa beans are used to make ruby chocolate. Unfermented cocoa beans can have a natural red/pink colour.
Callebaut registered a patent in 2009. The patent is for “cocoa-derived material” from unfermented cocoa beans (or beans fermented for no more than three days) that become red or purple after treating them with an acid and then defatting with petroleum ether.
“The beans are like mother nature gave them to us and are not GMO. Barry Callebaut is able to identify the ruby beans containing the right set of attributes. Secondly, we developed a unique processing that makes those special precursors come alive, creating ruby chocolate,” Barry Callebaut.
Yes it is naturally pink. It seems it is all about the process and not necessarily the discovery of a new cocoa bean?
What are the ingredients of the chocolate?
According to the label on the back of my 2kg packet of Callebaut ruby chocolate, below are the ingredients;
Sugar, cocoa butter, skimmed milk powder, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, emulsifier (soya lecithin0, acid (citric acid), natural vanilla flavouring (Cocoa Horizons Foundation).
What does it taste like?
Taste is a very personal. Let's start with what ruby chocolate tastes like for me.
It tastes very fruity, with berry qualities to it. There are sour notes, and it is these that make me think of a mildly tart berry flavour. It is sweet, like I find white chocolate is sweet, and the texture is creamy in the mouth.
What does Callebaut say; “intense fruitiness and fresh, sour notes”.
Callebaut state that there isn't any fruit flavouring added to the chocolate, and that the flavour is all natural due to the beans. It is interesting to note that vanilla flavouring is added.
Does it taste like other chocolate? Yes and no. It reminds me of a fruit flavoured and coloured white chocolate. It doesn’t have a “pure” chocolate taste.
The distinct “chocolate” taste of chocolate develops during fermentation. If they are using unfermented cocoa beans this may be the reason why it taste more fruity than expected.
If you are craving a traditional chocolate hit, I doubt it will do it for you. Especially if you are a fan of dark chocolate like I am.
How can I use ruby chocolate?
Ruby chocolate can be used the same way that white, milk or dark chocolate is used. It does temper at a lower temperature, it should be tempered between 28.5 - 29.5°C (83.3 – 84.2°F).
You could use it to make mousse, cakes, ganache, cookies. It is totally up to your imagination and of course can also be used to make truffles and chocolates.
Callebaut have some wonderful chef tutorials on their website. This includes tempering and you can find them here.
What flavours pair well with it?
- pepper
- curry
- cinnamon
- vanilla
- ginger bread
- mint
- wasabi
- basil
- saffron
- rosemary
- passion fruit
- lychee
- apricot
- algae (if anyone tries this combination please let us know!)
- pineapple
- coconut
- citrus fruit
- red fruits
- mango
- rose champagne
- fruity beer
- Gueuze beer
- honey
- cuberdon (Belgian specialty candy)
- caramel
- almonds
- hazelnuts
- sesame oil
- camembert
- roquefort
- green tea
- sake
- coffee
- vinegars
- dark chocolate
- gold chocolate
- velvet chocolate
- scallops (St Jacques shells)
How to store the chocolate.
Store the chocolate in an opaque airtight container in a dark cool area. It is sensitive to light, air and humidity (as is other chocolate). If not stored correctly it can discolour taking on a greyish appearance. Do not store in the fridge.
Where this chocolate falls short!
- The pretty pink colour is not retained when used in cooking.
- When added to liquids it turns a greyish pink colour.
- Beetroot powder or other pink colouring needs to be added to have an intense pink colour to the final dish.
- The colour of the chocolate will fade if affected by sunlight.
Ruby chocolate recipes
Ruby Chocolate Crackle Cookies - seriously pretty pink chocolate cookies
Ruby Chocolate Mud Cake - delicious mud cake topped with choc dipped cherries
Rachel
I have been wondering what Ruby Chocolate is and someone directed me to this post. Could you tell me the chocolate to cream ratio in order to make ganache? Thanks.
Sara McCleary
Hi Rachel
I have a recipe for Ruby Chocolate Mud Cake which has a ganache element. I hope this helps you. https://bellyrumbles.com/ruby-chocolate-mud-cake/
Cheers, Sara
G
Can someone eat the ruby chocolate if they have an allergy to cocoa? I have a friend who can have white chocolate but I’m not sure about the ruby 🙁
Sara McCleary
Hi G, Apologies for only seeing your comment now. In regard to allergies and eating ruby chocolate, I am not in a position to advise. Please contact Callebaut as they will be able to give you advice.
Roli
Hi,
I tried to work with ruby chocolate few times and I wonder if you find a way to suppress the grainy/sticky feeling. I'm looking at a smooth ganache similar to white or dark chocolate ganache.
Sara McCleary
Hi Roli
I've not come across this problem when making ganache with ruby chocolate. Not knowing what is going on while you are making ganache makes it hard for me to help you solve the problem.
Maxxwell Cassidy
Well, Christmas season is upon me, and I bought bags of Ruby Chocolate "callets" for everyone, including myself, which looked like pieces sized for snacking, but turned out to be flat little buttons, mini chocolate chip sized, and I followed a fairly standard chocolate cake recipe (enclosed below) and it literally exploded in the oven, all of the batter coming out and burning up and dripping down into the works of the thing and ruining it utterly. We're going to have to find a repairman, seriously . Ganache was a snap, but eating it in bars (chocolove) made me think the problem is that the product is the wrong pH, too acid or something, because why would baking soda go crazy like that? Anyway, the same thing happens when I make Pecan Pie. I still don't know how to make that recipe.
Can you point me to a simple chocolate cake recipe? I have five pounds of this stuff, and now am considering it a foolish waste of money.
Recipe follows:
Ingredients:
Dry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
------------------------------
Wet:
2 C water
2 C sugar
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Chocolate Frosting (see Note)
Finding any recipe that was not made with cocoa powder was hard already, and I couldn't source any Ruby cocoa powder, so I decided to short the sugar to make up for sweetened chocolate, and to use the Ruby as if it were Nestlé's chocolate chips, the sandard for Toll House cookies, despite it being milk chocolate, rather than dark, I also used milk instead of water, just as I would use butter instead of oil, as I want it to tasted good rather than be economical. Here in the US all the recipes were re-written during WWII, to use cheaper, more available ingredients, and so everyone ignores the specifics, and have abandoned some of those recipes altogether, like Mayonnaise Cakes (mayo to sub for eggs and oil) and, gasp, paraffin cakes. On the Barry Callebaut website the recipes are in grams and centigrade, so, very hard to use, and call for unavailable exotic ingredients, or frankenfoods, e.g., their recipe for ice cream base, clearly for commercial production, that is food factories, rather than kitchens your kids run around in, has chemical ingredients like stabilizers and texture enhancers, and has an instructions step that includes "pasteurizing". Well, I'm feeding a family, not going into agribusiness, and my definition of home made, that is, wholesome, does not include weird stuff in my food. They had a recipe for a bundt cake, but it was behind a marketing wall asking me to dox myself, not just sitting on the site where you could just make the thing. No other manufacturers are shy with their recipes. So, upshot, can you make a cake with this stuff? What's the secret? Christmas is coming, and I can't afford to smoke up my house again.
Oh, the b. powder is Rumsford, the soda, Arm and Hammer.
It just seemed like something happened between the leavening and the chocolate. My yellow cake recipe becomes orange cake just by putting half the milk as orange juice, and that's a lot of acid to add to a recipe, but it works just fine. Citric acid is listed on the ingredients of the Ruby, so does that mean you don't use b. powder at all, but only use soda? My grandma told me to make a cake by putting a teaspoon of powder per cup of flour with half a cup of sugar, half a stick of butter, and "milk till it goes" as she would say, and I was a little kid, so we didn't measure anything -- my instincts seem to be way off today. And they looked wonderful in the oven, rising, browning a little on the top, and then ka-poof! batter everywhere, the oven full of smoke and cake-batter foam, pushing down into the firebox below the oven, even.
Anyway, I enjoyed your site today, and wish you well.
MMC
Sara McCleary
Hi Maxxwell, that really does sound like quite a saga. There are a couple of ruby chocolate recipes on the blog, they are referred to in the above article if you are interested, one of those is a ruby chocolate mud cake.
Unfortunately I use grams for measurements, it is the most accurate.
Especially when you take in to consideration USA cup and Australian cup measurements aren't the same. Nor are tablespoons, USA tablespoon has 3 teaspoons and an Australian tablespoon has 4 teaspoons. If you love cooking I highly recommend a set of scales that can adjust between grams and ounces.
I wish you luck on your ruby chocolate adventure.
Janelle Unrau
Thank-you for your information on Ruby Chocolate. I have been troubled in the last day or so to find that the bonbons I made with a ruby shell with dark chocolate ganache started fading. Based on your comments, should I be OK that this is natural? Thank-you.
Sara McCleary
Hi Janelle
Your bon bons sound absolutely delicious! It could be one or two things, yes the colour has naturally faded being exposed to light, or have they been heat effected? This too will make the chocolate fade. The main thing is, do they still taste great?
Janelle Unrau
Thanks, Sara. They've definitely not been heat effected. Someone from the Chocolate Academy online wondered if it was a PH reaction between the Ruby Couverture and the dark chocolate ganache. It seems to be quite mysterious at this point.
Sara McCleary
That is a really interesting point, thank you for passing that one on to me. I didn't think they would have been heat effected, I was really stretching for reasons why it may have happened.
Gloria
What is the ratio for ganache
Sara
Hi Gloria
This post was a general post regarding ruby chocolate.
If you are after a ganache recipe you can find one here https://bellyrumbles.com/ruby-chocolate-mud-cake/
Cheers Sara
Sarah
Hi I was wondering if ruby Chocolate has any caffeine in it like the dark and milk chocolate?
Sara
Hi Sarah
i will have to take a stab in the dark regarding the caffeine quantity in ruby chocolate. As it is made from the beans like milk and dark chocolate then I would guess that it does.
Ana
Is there any way you can find out and confirm whether this chocolate does have caffeine or not please? My sister has allergies to caffeine. And I'd like to know that she can have this Ruby Chocolate. I've been trying Google but nothing seems to come up to answer this question definitely.
Sara McCleary
Hi Ana, as your sister has an allergy to caffeine I don't want to take the risk of passing on the wrong information to you. I suggest you contact the Barry Callebaut contact in your country and directly and ask them to be sure. I would hate to pass on wrong information, sorry.
Sandy
Hi Sara, thank you for the in-depth introduction on Ruby. As a homebaker, I'd like to introduce this new chocolate to my clients, especially for the upcoming mother's day. I live in tropics, hot and humid year round and I saw your comments on not to store Ruby in the fridge and that instantly stopped me from using it. Is there any other way to overcome this problem? Am storing all my chocolates, including white chocolate, couverture and compound too without any problem. Also, can Ruby be used as a ganache to cover cakes? I'd be grateful if you could enlighten me. Thank you very much.
Sara
Hi Sandy
It is recommended to not store any chocolate in the fridge. But, under your circumstances the fridge is the more stable environment for it along with your other chocolate.
Yes you can use ruby chocolate as a ganache to cover cakes. Use it as you would any other chocolate. You will need to play around with the ratio of cream to ruby chocolate to get the right consistency you want for the ganache.
Sandy
Thank you very much for your prompt reply, Sara! Hope I can get my hands on the Ruby chocolate soon. Also, I really appreciate your honesty when you mentioned about the colour of the baked cake, it's really helpful and I like people being honest. Keep baking and inspiring others. Have a great day there....
Sara
My pleasure Sandy, have fun experimenting with it 🙂
Jessica
Hi Sara,
Wow, this is just amazing! This is very informative. I love the color, it's my favorite but it's just sad that Callebaut ruby chocolate does not retain it's color when cooked 🙁 I'm looking forward to having a taste of this 😉
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Jessica
Annissa
Never heard of this type of chocolate! Looks interestingly delicious! Thanks for sharing!
Natalie
This chocolate sounds amazing! I never tried anything like this!
Mary Bostow
Great information. Thanks for sharing. Keep uploading content like this. Appreciated.
Thanks
SHASHI AT SAVORYSPIN
This is my first time hearing of ruby chocolate and I am fascinated!I need to try and get my hands on some as that color is just divine!
Demeter
Thank you so much for sharing all of the detail! I love the color so a bit disappointed to know it doesn't keep the same shade when cooked.
Gaby
Interesting! I had heard about this "fourth" kind of chocolate but had no idea where to find it. Reading your review, I don't think I'd like it.
Sara
Hi Gaby, I think (well it is the approach I am taking) you just need to not think of it as traditional chocolate. It's unique and interesting. Do try it if you get the chance to .
Gaby
Will do 🙂