The Many Faces of Chocolate.

Chocolate comes in many forms and is mainly due to how it is processed. This will normally include the selection of cacao beans, roasting and crushing of beans, and the sort of ingredients added into the mix - milk, sugar, emulsifier, etc. The main types are milk, with variations like white and sweet or semisweet chocolates and dark, bitter or unsweetened versions.

Milk chocolate is a combination of cocoa butter, sugar, milk, emulsifier, soy lecithin and vanilla. It's cocoa content ranges from 10-20% with milk solids of about 12%. It is what many people refer to when they talk about chocolate. It's smooth irresistible melt-in-your mouth texture means it is really difficult to let go once you take a bite. At the other end of this is the dark, bitter or unsweetened version with cacao content ranging from 62% - 99%. The darker and more cacao content a chocolate has, the more beneficially healthy it is.

The first edible chocolate bar was made by the English chocolateur Joseph Storrs Fry in 1849. However the milk chocolate as we know it today had its beginnings in the late 19th century when the Swiss developed several processes that made a solid chocolate bar possible. The major players here were Daniel Peter, a Swiss chocoloteur who combined powdered milk and cocoa, Henri Nestle, a Swiss chemist who invented powdered milk in 1867 and Rudolphe Lindt who used an uncommon process known as 'conching' to significantly alter chocolate into a blendable malleable candy bar.

Chocolate was never to be the same again and has since gone through great improvements and many variations as indicated above.

Chocolate and Wine - a double serving of flavanoids.

Flavanoids are water soluble plant pigments that provide an array of health benefits. Most of them come in coloured forms and can be found in foods like red grapes, strawberries, oranges, pink grapefruit, blueberries, etc.

Chocolates are also known to be a rich source of flavanoids - providing great benefits for the heart. It is a great tasty food and has been enjoyed by many people since it was first discovered centuries ago by the Aztecs during the reign of Emperor Montezuma.

High in energy and rich in carbohydrates, fats, and vegetable proteins, chocolate has large quantities of potassium and magnesium, some calcium and sodium, and vitamins A1, B1, B2, D, and E.

What happens when you combine chocolates and wine? A double serving of flavanoids.

This video tries to find which types of wine combine well with chocolate.



Learn how you too can prepare any chocolate recipe in minutes on video. Become a real chocolate expert. Easy to follow lessons.