Chocolate has only been popular for the last 175 years, but it exists in many forms. It is made by harvesting cocoa pods, fermenting, drying, grading, roasting, and grinding the beans, and then pressing them to release cocoa butter. Different types of chocolate have different compositions and uses. White chocolate is not considered chocolate by the FDA.
Beloved by the world, and particularly by moody women, the sweet and delicious substance known as chocolate has only become popular in the last 175 years or so. The Aztec Indians drank a hot concoction made from cocoa beans, but it was nothing like the drink as we know it. In fact, the first solid chocolate bar was sold in England in 1847. It also exists in many forms – some familiar, some less so.
Chocolate is made by harvesting the pods from the cocoa tree and allowing them to ferment for about a week. The beans are then shelled from the pods and sun dried or machine dried. The latter method takes less time, but produces a lower grade of chocolate.
After being dried, the beans are then graded, roasted and ground. The ground beans are pressed to release the fat, or cocoa butter, and the result is a cocoa mass or “liqueur.” The cocoa liquor is then used to make various types of chocolate.
Milk chocolate is probably the most familiar type. It is made by combining cocoa liqueur, cocoa butter, lecithin, whole milk, vanilla and sugar. A good quality product should have at least 33% cocoa solids. However, most mass-produced varieties have fewer. The United States Food and Drug Administration has set standards on what percentage of cocoa solids a given type must have in order to be labeled and sold as that variety.
Some are best for eating and some for cooking. Some types, such as couverture chocolate, can be used to bake, eat, or coat candy. This is generally considered to be the highest quality and has a high percentage of cocoa butter, making it smooth and easily sharpened. The coating is also expensive, making it more suitable for candy making than general baking, for which very high quality is not required.
Baking chocolate is often bittersweet or unsweetened, meaning it has 60 to 100 percent cocoa liquor, very little sugar, and a much lower cocoa butter content than other varieties. It can also have a grainy texture, which doesn’t matter when melted and used for cooking. Compound chocolate is sometimes used in place of couverture, as it is less expensive, with vegetable shortening instead of cocoa butter. Cocoa powder is also a familiar sight in the grocery aisle and has a huge variety of uses. The consumption of chocolate must be strictly consumed in the form of a bar.
White chocolate is not considered chocolate by the FDA and therefore has no guidelines for its composition. The best ones are made from cocoa butter, whole milk powder, vanilla, sugar, and lecithin. Some lower grades include a lot of vegetable shortening, but the best kind use only cocoa butter.
Willy Wonka’s Chocolate River from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may be a fantasy, but author Roald Dahl has got the idea right: Everyone loves chocolate.
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