Types of Chocolate

Chocolate and cocoa are derived from cocoa or cacao beans. When the beans are fermented, roasted, and ground, the resulting product is called chocolate liquor, which contains a white or yellowish fat called cocoa butter.

Cocoa

Cocoa is the dry powder that remains after part of the cocoa butter is removed from chocolate liquor. Dutch process cocoa, or dutched cocoa, is processed with an alkali. It is slightly darker, smoother in flavour, and more easily dissolved in liquids than is natural cocoa.

Natural cocoa is somewhat acidic. When it is used in such products as cakes, it is possible to use baking soda (which reacts with acid) as part of the leavening power.

Dutched cocoa, on the other hand, is generally neutral or even slightly alkaline. Therefore, it does not react with baking soda. Instead, baking powder is used as the sole leavening agent. If you are substituting dutched for natural cocoa, you must increase the baking powder by 1 ounce for each ½ ounce soda omitted.

If not enough soda is used in chocolate products, the colour of the finished product may range from light tan to dark brown, depending on the quantity used. If too much is used, the colour will be reddish brown. This colour is desired in devil’s food cakes but it may not want in other products. When switching from one kind of cocoa to another, you may have to adjust the soda in your recipes.

Unsweetened or Bitter Chocolate

Unsweetened chocolate is straight chocolate liquor. It contains no sugar and has strongly bitter taste. Because it is molded in blocks, it is also referred to as block cocoa or cocoa block. It is used to flavour items that have other sources of sweetness.

Unsweetened chocolate is also known as bitter chocolate. Do not confuse this product with bittersweet chocolate, which category of sweetened chocolate with low sugar content.

Sweet Chocolate

Sweet chocolate is bitter chocolate with the addition of sugar and cocoa butter in various proportions. If the percentage of sugar is low, sweetened chocolate may be called semisweet or, with even less sugar, bittersweet. Both of these products must contain at least 35% chocolate liquor, and their sugar content ranges from 35 to 50%. A product labelled sweet chocolate may contain as little as 15% chocolate liquor.

Because sweet chocolate has only half the chocolate content of bitter chocolate, it is usually not economical to add it to products that are already highly sweetened because twice as much will be needed.

Good quality chocolate products – including not only dark chocolate but also milk chocolate and white chocolate – are often called couverture, which means “coating” in French. When couverture is used to coat candies, cookies, and other products, the chocolate must be prepared by a process called tempering.

Milk Chocolate

Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate to which milk solids have been added. It is usually used as a coating chocolate and in various confections. It is seldom melted and then incorporated in batters because it contains a relatively low proportion of chocolate liquor.

Cocoa Butter

Cocoa butter is the fat pressed out of chocolate liquor when cocoa is processed. Its main use in the bakeshop is to thin melted couverture to a proper consistency.

White Chocolate

White chocolate consists of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids. It is used primarily in confectionary. Technically, it should not be called chocolate, because it contains no cocoa solids. However, the name white chocolate is in common use.