Chocolate Types and Usage
Chocolate liquor, also known as unsweetened, bitter, baking, or cooking
chocolate, is pure chocolate with no added ingredients. It contains nearly equal
parts cocoa butter and cocoa solids (meat of the cocoa bean), which is why it
imparts such a deep, rich chocolate flavor to anything you make with it.
Unsweetened chocolate is always combined with sugar and other ingredients to
make american-style brownies, cakes, frostings, and fudges.
Chocolate Types
Extra-bittersweet, bittersweet, semisweet, and sweet cooking chocolates are made
of chocolate liquor, not more than 12 percent milk solids, cocoa butter, sugar,
vanilla or vanillin, and lecithin. Bittersweet bars often have a deeper
chocolate flavor than those labeled 'semi-sweet,' and they are apt to be less
sweet (although the amount of sugar they contain is not regulated). These
chocolates may be used interchangeably in most recipes, but their differences
can alter the flavor, texture, and appearances of the finished product.
White chocolate resembles milk chocolate in composition except that it contains
no chocolate liquor, which is why it is ivory or cream-colored, not brown. The
cocoa butter it contains gives it a very mild, milk chocolate flavor and a
creamy feel. This product should not be confused with white confectionary
coating, which is made with a vegetable fat other than cocoa butter. White
chocolate is used most frequently when a delicate chocolate flavor is desired.
Chocolate chips come in a variety of flavors and sizes and are formulated to
hold their shape in baked desserts without melting, even though the fat is fully
melted. Chocolate chips should not be used in place of bar chocolate in recipes
that require melted chocolate.
Cocoa is pulverized, partially defatted chocolate liquor that contains 10 to 24
percent cocoa butter and absolutely no sugar. The two types of cocoa available
in supermarkets are non-alkalized (natural) and alkalized (Dutch-process).
Nonalkalized cocoa is light in color and somewhat acidic with a strong chocolate
flavor. Alkalized, or Dutch-process cocoa has been processed with alkali to
neutralize its natural acidity by raising its pH level. It is darker, milder in
taste, and less acidic than nonalkalized cocoa. In baking, use non-alkalized
cocoa in recipes that call for baking soda and alkalized cocoa in those that use
baking powder as the primary leavener. In recipes where no leavening is
required, the choice is a matter of taste.
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