By Aarthi Katakam '21
Everyone seems to have an opinion on chocolate. Some people hate it, and others are willing to punch people that hate it. “Vanilla or Chocolate?” seems to be the great debate in icebreakers across America, but there are divisions that exist even within the chocolate-lover community. Which one is the best: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate? But first, what makes all these chocolates different?
A Chocolate Conundrum
Chocolate can be found in many forms, but all of them contain some ratio of cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, and cocoa solids. These are all derivatives of the Cocoa bean (Theobroma cacao) and are produced during the steps of the chocolate-making process.
The first step of the process is fermentation, which happens immediately after cacao pods are opened. Yeast eats the sugars from the beans to produce ethanol, which is then oxidized by bacteria to produce acetic acid, carbon dioxide, and water. The acetic acid breaks the cell walls of the bean in a process called curing, killing it and mixing several substances that eventually result in the beginnings of the “chocolate” taste.
After curing, the cocoa beans are sorted and roasted. The roasting process strengthens the flavor precursors by converting them into organic compounds like aldehydes, esters, lactones, and pyrazines, creating more distinctive flavor. The shells of the beans are removed through a process called winnowing, and the beans are broken into tiny pieces called nibs. Nibs are ground into a liquid called chocolate liquor, which can be further divided into cocoa butter and cocoa solids.
Dark, Milk, or White?
Cocoa butter, which makes up about 55% of the liquor, is a fatty substance composed mostly of triglycerides. Most of these triglycerides contain oleic acid, stearic acid, and palmitic acid linked to a glycerol backbone. After cocoa butter is removed from the liquor, cocoa solids remain. Some main chemical components of solids are theobromine, which is what makes chocolate toxic to dogs, and phenethylamine, which is why eating chocolate makes us feel happy! Theobromine is also very chemically similar to caffeine, allowing it similar stimulating properties.
The next step of the chocolate-making process is blending, which defines the type of chocolate being made. To make dark chocolate, cocoa butter is mixed with cocoa liquor and sugar. This type of chocolate has the highest concentration of cocoa solids (>35%), giving it its distinct bitter flavor. The next type of chocolate, milk chocolate is made by mixing cocoa butter, liquor (20-30%), sugar, and dried milk. Most of the time, confectioners add other flavorings to milk chocolate such as vanillin, which adds a vanilla flavor, or butyric acid, which gives chocolate a slightly sour taste. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, milk, and sugar, with no chocolate liquor at all. White chocolate is usually the sweetest and tastes the least like chocolate.
Which one wins?
So, which chocolate do you think is the best? I think it’s dark chocolate, but you can comment your favorite down below. Also, just some more food for thought: is white chocolate actually chocolate?
Sources:
https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i11/Periodic-graphics-chocolate-chemistry.html https://www.science.org.au/curious/everything-else/chocolate https://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7849sci5.html
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