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.
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 nonalkalized (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 nonalkalized 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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