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Chocolate? Chocolates? Click the tabs below to learn more.
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CHOCOLATE
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CHOCOLATES
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CHOCOLATE MAKER
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CHOCOLATIER
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CHOCOLATE: The delectable food made from various combinations of cocoa beans, cocoa butter, sugar, often with vanilla and often a very small amount of lecithin, a natural emulsifier. There are many ways to describe a given chocolate, such as percent cocoa solids or percent cocoa butter. Consider a bar labelled 70% chocolate. It means 70% of the bar is "cocoa mass" (ingredients that come from the cocoa bean) and 30% is sugar. (There are trivial amounts of vanilla and possibly lecithin, but this keeps the numbers simple.) The percentage of cocoa butter is of great interest to chocolatiers for technical reasons, but not usually of interest to consumers.
There are basically three varieties of "eating" chocolate:
There are many chocolate-containing or chocolate-like products. "Coating" or "candy melt" is a product that replaces the cocoa butter with other fats. Similarly, baking "chocolate chips" use fats other than cocoa butter. These products are used mostly by home cooks.
CALORIES: The calorie content of chocolate varies considerably from one chocolate to another. Roughly, you can estimate dark chocolate at 5-6 Calories per gram, or roughly 140-170 Calories per ounce. A typical bar of good quality chocolate is about 1.5 ounces and will have about 200 - 250 Calories.
There are basically three varieties of "eating" chocolate:
- Dark Chocolate (includes terms such as bittersweet and semi-sweet). Fine quality dark chocolate consists of sugar, cocoa beans, cocoa butter, vanilla, and sometimes lecithin. Some commercial chocolate makers such as Dove® add milk fat and butterfat to their dark chocolate. Artisanal chocolatiers prefer chocolate whose only fat is cocoa butter.
- Milk Chocolate. This is essentially dark chocolate to which milk solids have been added).
- White Chocolate. White chocolate consists of cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, vanilla, and lecithin. The "dark" part of dark chocolate (called "cocoa liquor") is omitted.
There are many chocolate-containing or chocolate-like products. "Coating" or "candy melt" is a product that replaces the cocoa butter with other fats. Similarly, baking "chocolate chips" use fats other than cocoa butter. These products are used mostly by home cooks.
CALORIES: The calorie content of chocolate varies considerably from one chocolate to another. Roughly, you can estimate dark chocolate at 5-6 Calories per gram, or roughly 140-170 Calories per ounce. A typical bar of good quality chocolate is about 1.5 ounces and will have about 200 - 250 Calories.
CHOCOLATES: The plural. With an "s." These are confections made with chocolate. Typically, there is an outer chocolate shell around a flavored center that can be made of a wide variety of ingredients. Truffles have a center made of an emulsion of chocolate and cream called a ganache. Other centers include fondants, jellies, nougats, and marzipan. Chocolates other than truffles are also called bon-bons or pralines. But make a chocolatier happy and do not call her/his works of art "candy."
CHOCOLATE MAKER: The chocolate you eat has come a very long way from its origin as a seed ("bean.") Simply, a chocolate maker starts with the raw cocoa bean and makes chocolate out of it. Hersheys and Mars are chocolate makers that use the chocolate they make for their own candy products. Examples of large chocolate makers include Callebaut, Chocolates El Rey, Felchlin, Guittard, Scharffen Berger (a division of Hershey), Shokinag, and Valrhona. Most chocolatiers rely on obtaining chocolate from a large chocolate maker. As with any gourmet food, opinions become quite heated about which chocolate maker produces the best (or even good) chocolate. Some large volume chocolatiers have also become chocolate makers, choosing to create their own signature chocolate.
There are also smaller, more artisanal "bean-to-bar" chocolate makers. They are in charge of the whole shebang, from cocoa beans to the placement of the bar on the shelf. They usually sell their products as bars, sometimes with flavorings or inclusions. (Our personal favorite here at Mann Made Chocolate is Madécasse, although Theo is also quite good and more widely available.)
There are also smaller, more artisanal "bean-to-bar" chocolate makers. They are in charge of the whole shebang, from cocoa beans to the placement of the bar on the shelf. They usually sell their products as bars, sometimes with flavorings or inclusions. (Our personal favorite here at Mann Made Chocolate is Madécasse, although Theo is also quite good and more widely available.)
CHOCOLATIER: Chocolatiers are the people and companies who -- through love, chemistry, and a bit of alchemy -- craft chocolate confections. In some cases, chocolatiers are also chocolate makers, meaning they are in charge of the entire process from getting the cocoa beans to selling the finished confections.
Chocolatiers take a certain pride in being artisans and craftspersons rather than simply "candy makers." To be sure, there is a certain amount of snobbishness of which we chocolatiers are guilty. But we believe that, like a fine wine or amazing cheese, when you taste truly great chocolate, you will taste the difference. Mann Made Chocolate tries its best to avoid snootiness--we gladly admit we enjoy a Snickers bar from time to time--but we advocate for fine quality chocolate.
Chocolatiers take a certain pride in being artisans and craftspersons rather than simply "candy makers." To be sure, there is a certain amount of snobbishness of which we chocolatiers are guilty. But we believe that, like a fine wine or amazing cheese, when you taste truly great chocolate, you will taste the difference. Mann Made Chocolate tries its best to avoid snootiness--we gladly admit we enjoy a Snickers bar from time to time--but we advocate for fine quality chocolate.
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CAN I GET SOME?
Please read about our model of creating limited run, ultra-fresh chocolates and why we limit our clientele.
By the way, if you happen to be Oprah, you can click here to see our apologies as to why we can't let you have any.
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