CHOCOLATE - THE GUILTY PLEASURE

“Your hands and mouth agreed many years ago that, as far as chocolate is concerned there is no need to involve your brain”

                                                                                                                         Dave Barry

Have you ever felt guilty after consuming the chocolates? Have you ever wondered what goes in making of this guilty pleasure? Then here is a brief about it. 

Chocolate a food product consisting essentially a mixture of cocoa, to sugar, to which milk, honey, dried fruits, etc. may be added.

Cocoa beans, sugar and vanilla are the three essential ingredients that have survived the tradition of chocolate making.

Cocoa trees thrive equatorial forests along the Equator, which has warm and humid climate. Africa is the largest producer of the cocoa plant in the world.

HISTORY

Chocolate is made from cocoa beans or the seeds of cocoa tree. The origin of chocolate can be traced to Mexico, where the cocoa tree was revered and worshiped by the natives. THEOBRAMA COCOA as the Aztecs called it means food for the gods. The Mayans and the Aztecs made a drink from the cocoa beans and flavored it with vanilla and spices. They called the beverage Xocolatl, which means bitter drink in their language.

12 Types of chocolate

·       Couverture

Couverture is French term used for covering chocolate. It should minimum contain 32% of coco butter and at least of 22% of coco solids. It needs to be tempered before using.

·       Compound chocolate

It is less expensive then couverture chocolate, it contains very less or no coco butter at all and has vegetable oil. Requires no tempering.

·       White chocolate

This is not considered as real chocolate as it does not contain any coco mass. It contains ingredients such as coco butter, milk solids, sugar, vanilla and emulsifiers. It is available in both form compound and couverture.

·       Milk chocolate

It is a mixture of dark and milk chocolate and contains around 10-12% of coco solids.

·       Semi-sweet chocolate

It is often referred as cooking chocolate or baking chocolate as it contains around 40-65% of cocoa solids.

·       Bitter sweet chocolate

This is a dark chocolate with very little amount of sugar added to it. It contains around 60-80% of coco solids.

·       Unsweetened chocolate

This is pure bitter chocolate it contains no sugar at all and has a 100% of coco solids and out of which 40-50% is coco butter.  

·       Single origin chocolate

While preparing chocolate coco beans of different regions are mixed together to make a perfect blend, but in single origin chocolate coco beans of same variety, climate and region are taken to make chocolate. It is more expensive.

·       Organic chocolate

This is made with the coco beans that have been grown organically without spraying of any chemicals. In fact the other ingredients added to it such as sugar, milk & flavourings are also grown organically.

·       Sugar free chocolate

Not to be confused with bitter chocolate this is a special type of chocolate which contains sugar in another form such as MALITITOL.

·       Plastic chocolate

Also known as modelling chocolate, it is made by mixing melted chocolate with liquid glucose or corn syrup and then it is kneaded as a dough. It is used to make chocolate sculptures.

·       Ruby chocolate

Ruby chocolate is a variety of chocolate introduced in by Barry Callebaut, a Belgian–Swiss cocoa company in 2017.

For making ruby chocolate the unfermented ruby coco beans are used and then it is treated with acid to get this pink color. But the original recipe is trade secret.

HEALTH BENEFITS

A substance present in cocoa beans, known as Theo bromine is considered to be good for heart and that is the reason why chocolates are made in heart shape and become the symbol of love and affection.

Phenolic compounds present in chocolate helps to relive stress by realizing of dopamine, the happiness hormone. The same phenolic compounds are also helpful in regulating blood pressure.

Flavanols is the compound in chocolate which helps in reducing the risk of heart disease.

All this compounds are present in dark chocolate and not in white chocolate, darker the chocolate more the benefits.

So next time when you consume chocolate don’t feel guilty about it have plenty of health benefits.

If you want me to write an article on tempering of chocolate then tell me below in comment section.