Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_chocolate
White chocolate, that creamy, indulgent confection around since the 1930s is enjoying a renaissance as more candy makers hop on the band wagon. Yes it’s popular and delicious but according to a baker friend, is most certainly not really chocolate. I adjusted my monocle and screamed “That’s preposterous! If it tastes like chocolate and melts like chocolate, then it must be chocolate! To the internet!”
Unfortunately, her statement is arguably true according to Bon Appetit. In order to make chocolate, cacao beans are fermented, dried and then roasted.
“White chocolate is made with a blend of sugar, cocoa butter, milk products, vanilla, and a fatty substance called lecithin. Technically, white chocolate is not a chocolate—and it doesn’t really taste like one—because it doesn’t contain chocolate solids. When cocoa beans are removed from their pods, fermented, dried, roasted, cracked open, and their shells discarded, what results is a nib. Chocolate nibs are ground into a paste called chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor can be separated into cocoa solids, which provide the flavor, and cocoa butter, which is the fat. Though white chocolate contains extracted cocoa butter, it lacks the component that defines real chocolate.” Source: Bon Appetit
Orphaned though it may be from chocolate brethren, it’s growing in popularity per the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps one day the chocolate family will be proud of white’s accomplishments and accept it back into the family. See also, the RoodonFood white chocolate pudding recipe. My favorite use of white chocolate is in white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. What are yours?
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