The Chocolate Directory- Your Guide to A Chocolatey Dessert
Summer is the most popular time of year to serve desserts. Most dessert recipes include either chocolate or cocoa in the ingredients. More often than not, the recipe will simply instruct you to add chocolate and/or cocoa, but will not specify what type you should be adding. With so many different types of chocolate/cocoa to choose from, how do you know which one to use to make your dessert just right?
1. Unsweetened chocolate, also known as baking or bitter chocolate, is 100% chocolate liquor. It is interesting to note that chocolate liquor actually has no alcohol. It is made by fermenting, roasting, shelling, and grinding cacao beans into a smooth, liquid paste, and is used as the base for all types of chocolate, other than white. Since baking chocolate is pure chocolate, it is very bitter. It is not made to eat, but rather for baking, where it is combined with sugar and other ingredients that sweeten it. It naturally contains about 50% cocoa butter and 50% cocoa solids.
2. Dutch processed cocoa is unsweetened chocolate that has gone through an extra step in the process. It’s been treated with alkali to neutralize its acidity, resulting in a darker color, deeper flavor and smoother texture. However, Dutch processed cocoa is still unsweetened.
3. Bittersweet and semisweet chocolate contain at least 35% chocolate liquor, plus cocoa butter and sugar in varying amounts. Vanillin and lecithin are also added. Although the sweetness differs slightly, they are pretty much interchangeable when it comes to baking.
4. Milk chocolate contains at least 10% chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, sugar, and at least 12% milk, milk powder, or condensed milk. It’s the chocoholic’s preference for both eating and baking.
5. White chocolate is technically not chocolate, as it contains no chocolate liquor. However, in order for it to be called chocolate, it is required to include at least 20% cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla, lecithin, and milk solids. Typically, white chocolate has an ivory coloring. However, if it is pure white, then there is an added fat which improves the melting process but modifies the flavor.
6. Chocolate chips have less cocoa butter than other chocolates, and very often have extra fats included. Chocolate chips can be interchanged with bittersweet chocolate in some recipes, but not for sauces, mousses, and puddings, since they don’t melt as well as bittersweet chocolate does.
Filed under: How-To • General • Food Quality
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