You might enjoy chocolate in a mousse, a cake or as a nugget. Each of these treats are made with different kinds of chocolate. Each has its own flavor and its own unique story behind it.
Here is the history and description of each of the nine most popular types of chocolate, and the ingredients that keep us coming back for more.
1. Dark Chocolate: This chocolate is one of the types that stays closest to its original form. Dark Chocolate or ‘healthy chocolate‘ is produced by adding fat and sugar to cocoa. It is chocolate with no milk, or with much less milk than milk chocolate. Dark chocolate has also been proven to improve cardiovascular health, boost antioxidants and boost mood in a variety of scientific and medical studies.
2. Milk Chocolate: This type of chocolate is the candy bar chocolate and one of the most consumed chocolates in America. It is a solid chocolate made with milk in the form of milk powder, liquid milk, or condensed milk. Whole and/or skim milk powder has been added to this type of chocolate. Milk chocolate is rarely used in cooking and baking because the protein in the added milk solids interferes with the texture of the baked products. It contains approximately 20 percent cocoa solids.
Milk chocolate was invented in 1876 by a Swiss chocolatier, Daniel Peter (1836-1919) of Vevey, Geneva. Daniel Peter successfully combined chocolate with powdered milk to produce the first milk chocolate. Today, the finest chocolate is still made in Switzerland, and the consumption of milk chocolate far outweighs that of plain chocolate.
3. White Chocolate: Chocolate made with cocoa butter, sugar, milk, emulsifier, vanilla and sometimes other flavorings. It does not contain any non-fat ingredients from the cacao bean and has therefore an off-white color. . It has a mild and pleasant flavor and can be used to make Chocolate Mousse, Panna Cotta and other desserts.
There is controversy ever whether white chocolate is truly chocolate. In fact, it cannot even be called “chocolate” in some nations due to its lack of cocoa solids content. However, because cocoa butter comes from the cocoa bean, real white chocolate is indeed chocolate. There is however little, if any, health benefit to White Chocolate other than happy feelings that come from eating it.
4. Swiss Chocolate: In the late 1800’s, M. Daniel Peter produced milk chocolate and took his product to Henry Nestle who produced evaporated milk. When the condensed milk was mixed with Peter’s chocolate, it produced the sweet Swiss chocolate we know today. The quality of the milk and the cocoa used in this chocolate is what makes Swiss chocolate among the most quality in the world. The milk used in this chocolate is homegrown from Swiss cows that provide freshness, instead of using powdered milk and the cocoa beans are some of the finest produced in Africa.
5. German Chocolate: The predecessor to bittersweet, German chocolate is dark, but it is sweeter than semisweet chocolate. It has no connection to Germany; but was in fact invented by a man whose name was German.
6. Couverture Chocolate: This chocolate has a very high content of cocoa butter, at least 30 percent. Also has a high percentage of chocolate liquor, making it expensive but very good for baking. It is used mostly by professional bakers, it melts evenly and is the preferred chocolate for enrobing candies. This chocolate can be bought in some cake decorating stores or found online for purchase.
7. Semisweet Chocolate: This is the classic dark baking chocolate which can be purchased in most grocery stores. It is frequently used for cakes, cookies and brownies. Can be used instead of sweet dark chocolate. It has a good, sweet flavor. Contains often 40-62% cocoa solids.
8. Bittersweet Chocolate: Still dark, but a little sweeter than unsweetened. It is unsweetened chocolate to which sugar, more cocoa butter, lecithin, and vanilla has been added. It has less sugar and more liquor than semisweet chocolate but the two are interchangeable in baking. Bittersweet has become the sophisticated choice of chefs. It contains a high percentage (up to 75%) of cocoa solids, and little (or no) added sugar.
9) Baking (Unsweetened) Chocolate: This type of chocolate is also called plain or bitter chocolate. Since no sugar has been added to the chocolate it has a strong, bitter taste that is used in cooking and baking but is never eaten out of hand.
Where Chocolate Comes From: Theobroma cacao, or “the chocolate tree,” first grew and evolved in the Amazon region of South America in the rain forests. It is believed that as far back as 1000 BC there was usage of cacao by Mesoamerican Indians. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Aztecs cultivated cacao in the central highlands of Mexico.
There was a legend held by theAztec Indians the seeds of cacao were from Paradise and that one could gain wisdom and power if they ate the fruit of the cacao tree. Cacao beans are now known as cocoa beans Because of a spelling error, most likely done by the English traders.
Chocolate was first debuted in the United States in 1765 when John Hanan brought cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was able to to refine them with the help of Dr. James Baker and started the first chocolate factory in that city.
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