Sunday, February 18, 2007

Dark, Milk and White Chocolate? and What are all those percentages?

Sometimes, the wold of chocolate gets a little confusing. I want to make this a simple thing for all. The reason white chocolate is white is because there is no cocoa liqueur or cocoa mass in white chocolate but there is cocoa butter which is white. When buying white chocolate, look for the whitest color! Yellow/white chocolate is usually poor quality. Got that? Moving on to milk chocolate. Milk chocolate contains milk solids and lots of sugar. The beans that milk chocolate comes from are usually less quality. Dark chocolate has been found to contain the healthiest compounds because it really is from the rawest of the substances from the cocoa bean. The higher the percentage, the higher the cocoa mass or liqueur. Do not bake with a higher percentage than 50-55% because it is usually too bitter. But if you develop your tastebuds, the higher percentages are usually better for you because they have less sugar and higher cocoa content so you get all the healthy cocoa compounds in a very potent piece of chocolate. Kinda of like extra strength! Higher than 70% is a little too bitter for most of our palettes but that is an individual preference. Here at Chicks Love Chocolate, are dark chocolates are 55% cocoa. Hope that helps!

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