Ingredients in Chocolate

Chocolate has been enjoyed by man for more than 2000 years. It was first enjoyed in the Aztec culture, where it was served as a beverage and was favored by royalty. However, today it is favored all around the world. It has, in fact, become one of the most popular type of food and food flavors in the world. Gifts of chocolate molded into different shapes have gone on to become traditional for certain occasions. For example, chocolate bunnies and eggs are very popular for Easter, chocolate coins on Hanukkah, chocolate hearts for Valentine's Day, Santa Claus and other symbols for Christmas, etc. Chocolate is used in hot as well as cold beverages to make them delicious. Chocolate is mainly produced from the seeds of a tropical tree called Theobroma Cacao. Cacao has been cultivated in Mexico, Central and South America, Africa, etc. for at least three millenniums. Africa is the world's top continental producer of cacao beans. The main of the chocolate ingredients are the cacao tree seeds.

The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and need to be fermented, so that they develop the required flavor. After the fermentation process, the beans are dried, cleaned and roasted. Then the shell is removed from the beans to get cacao nibs. Cocoa mass is then produced by grounding the nibs. Cocoa mass is actually pure chocolate in pure rough form. To get chocolate liquor, cocoa mass is liquefied, then molded either with or without other ingredients. We now know, how the most basic ingredients of chocolate is made.

Ingredients in Chocolate

There are various varieties of chocolate, like milk, dark, white, etc. Chocolate liquor may be processed into two components, namely cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The unsweetened chocolate (bitter chocolate) used for baking primarily contains cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions.

Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate is made without adding any milk solids to cocoa. Since there are milk solids added to it, dark chocolate is more prone to have dry, chalky texture as well as bitter aftertaste. The dark chocolate ingredients are cacao beans, sugar, emulsifier like soy lecithin to preserve the taste and flavorings. When dark chocolate is made commercially, the cocoa content in dark chocolate can range from 30% (sweet dark) to 70% and 75% to above 80% in extremely dark bars.

White Chocolate
According to Food and Drug Administration Department of United States, white chocolate is actually not a chocolate. However, for all of us it is yet a chocolate. Now let's see white chocolate ingredients. White chocolate is made from cocoa butter, which is a by-product of cocoa beans, which is used to produce chocolate. Cocoa butter has a faint chocolate flavor and is combined with milk, sugar and flavorings, to create creamy white chocolate.

Milk Chocolate
We will now see the ingredients in a chocolate bar. The chocolate we normally have is milk chocolate. In addition to cocoa butter and chocolate liquor, condensed milk or dry milk solids are added to make milk chocolate. In the United States, milk chocolate must contain 10% chocolate liquor, 3.39% butterfat and 12% milk solids.

There are a number of other chocolates, which have become popular in different parts of the world. The chocolate ingredients in each one of them vary slightly from the basic types of chocolates mentioned above. It is the percentage of cocoa, milk and sugar, which makes one chocolate different than the other. Among the other ingredients in chocolate, the flavors also lend different tastes to the chocolates.