Channeling Julia

Sweets for the sweet?

How about these luscious fresh strawberries dipped in our own special dark chocolate with crunchy unrefined cocoa nibs!

A traditional indicator of the quality of chocolate is smooth grainless texture. This is the result of many hours of conching - grinding and evenly distributing the mixture of cocoa butter, cocoa and sugar. We chose to invert this paradigm by adding granulated sugar and cacao nibs to our already high cocoa butter chocolate - producing a slightly gritty and crunchy chocolate with a texture not unlike a chocolate bar with coffee beans, but with a pure chocolate taste.

Have you ever wondered what the percentage mark on a fancy chocolate bar really means?

A number such as 54% means that the bar contains 54% cocoa products (chocolate liquor) - the remainder is sugar and flavor. This is somewhat confusing as the ratio of cocoa solids to cocoa butter is not stated. If the label also has the word "Couverture", then extra cocoa butter has been added so the total amount of cocoa butter in the bar is at least 32%.

So a 54% couverture chocolate bar will have (approximately) 32% cocoa butter, 22% cocoa solids, 45% sugar and about 1% flavor and/or other ingredients. The result will be a sweet dark chocolate bar with a high sheen and a mellow creamy texture. (For comparison, a less expensive 54% chocolate bar would have 27% cocoa butter, 27% cocoa solids, 45% sugar and 1% other ingredients.)

70% chocolate bars are much the same except that the percentage of sugar is lower and the result is semisweet. Note that a normal 70% chocolate bar will contain 35% cocoa butter and 35% cocoa solids - but to be called couverture chocolate the ratio would need to be more like 39% cocoa butter to 31% cocoa solids.

A footnote - the Chocolate Manufacturers Association would like to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oils so they can make cheaper chocolate and sell the cocoa butter for a big profit. To date the FDA has refused to allow this practice.