White Chocolat, what is it really? Well I don't define it as chocolat but I did successfully make my first batch of bean to bar white chocolat with caramelized cacao nibs. I'm joyfully pleased.
See my blog on "Growing and Marketing "new" cacao species?". This year I will try chocolate made from Cupuassu, which defintely is lighter colored. I plan to call it "chocolate rubio" or "blond chocolate". And once I get some Pataste I can make the "real" white chocolate like the Aztecs did. Does anyone have experiece with these (Theobroma grandiflorum and bicolor)?
Can chocolate liquor be white? IF so doesn't that make it the same as cacao butter?
Most people do not believe that white "chocolate" is really chocolate. But it is, because the FDA says it is (see section 163.124).
According to the FDA, " White chocolate is the solid or semiplastic food prepared by intimately mixing and grinding chocolate liquor with one or more optional nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners, and may contain one or more of the other optional ingredients specified in ..."
One of the optional ingredients is cacao fat.
What's really interesting about this (and thank you Brad for your comments because I looked at this closely for the first time) ... is that CFR 163.111 says that " Chocolate liquor is the solid or semiplastic food prepared by finely grinding cacao nibs. The fat content of the food may be adjusted by adding one or more of the optional ingredients ... Chocolate liquor contains not less than 50 percent nor more than 60 percent by weight of cacao fat ..."
This makes no sense to me. If white chocolate is made by grinding chocolate liquor with other ingredients and chocolate liquor can not contain more than 60% by weight of cacao fat ... from this description it would seem impossible to make white chocolate that does not contain what are technically called "non-fat cocoa solids."
All that aside, congrats on your first batch of white chocolate!
Technically the cocoaparticles (brown stuff) are NOT chocolate - the cocoa butter IS chocolate.
Think about this for a second:
Cocoa powder is approximately 90% brown stuff, yet it's not called chocolate. It's called cocoa. Even when you mix it with something it still legally can't be called chocolate.
ALL chocolate is a suspension of tiny particles of "stuff" in cocoa butter. Dark chocolate is brown stuff, sugar, and vanilla suspended in cocoa butter. Milk chocolate is brown stuff, sugar, powdered milk, and vanilla suspended in cocoa butter. White chocolate is sugar, powdered milk, and vanilla suspended in.... you guessed it: Cocoa butter!
ALL products that are called CHOCOLATE (different than chocolatey coating, or coating chocolate - which generally have higher percentages of other fats), MUST legally have a certain percentage of cocoa butter in order for them to be called chocolate.\
So there you have it. Chocolate is NOT the brown stuff. Chocolate is the cocoa butter!
See my blog on "Growing and Marketing "new" cacao species?". This year I will try chocolate made from Cupuassu, which defintely is lighter colored. I plan to call it "chocolate rubio" or "blond chocolate". And once I get some Pataste I can make the "real" white chocolate like the Aztecs did. Does anyone have experiece with these (Theobroma grandiflorum and bicolor)?
Can chocolate liquor be white? IF so doesn't that make it the same as cacao butter?
Journey:
Most people do not believe that white "chocolate" is really chocolate. But it is, because the FDA says it is (see section 163.124).
According to the FDA, " White chocolate is the solid or semiplastic food prepared by intimately mixing and grinding chocolate liquor with one or more optional nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners, and may contain one or more of the other optional ingredients specified in ..."
One of the optional ingredients is cacao fat.
What's really interesting about this (and thank you Brad for your comments because I looked at this closely for the first time) ... is that CFR 163.111 says that " Chocolate liquor is the solid or semiplastic food prepared by finely grinding cacao nibs. The fat content of the food may be adjusted by adding one or more of the optional ingredients ... Chocolate liquor contains not less than 50 percent nor more than 60 percent by weight of cacao fat ..."
This makes no sense to me. If white chocolate is made by grinding chocolate liquor with other ingredients and chocolate liquor can not contain more than 60% by weight of cacao fat ... from this description it would seem impossible to make white chocolate that does not contain what are technically called "non-fat cocoa solids."
All that aside, congrats on your first batch of white chocolate!
:: Clay
Whoa! what the heck happend to my font sizes???
Technically the cocoaparticles (brown stuff) are NOT chocolate - the cocoa butter IS chocolate.
Think about this for a second:
So there you have it. Chocolate is NOT the brown stuff. Chocolate is the cocoa butter!