Chocolate and cocoa

The roasted, ground seed of a Mesoamerican tree — cacao — bitter and complex, sweetened and refined into chocolate over three centuries, and in the kitchen a family of ingredients: cocoa powder, dark, milk and white chocolate, cocoa butter and nibs, each behaving differently in a pan.

Where it comes from

Cacao was domesticated in the Amazon basin and reached Mesoamerica four thousand years ago, where the Olmecs, Maya and Aztecs drank it bitter, spiced with chilli and vanilla and frothed — chocolate was a drink, a currency and a ritual, and it stayed a drink for the Spanish who took it home, sweetened with sugar and warmed with cinnamon. Solid eating chocolate is a nineteenth-century Dutch, Swiss and English invention: van Houten’s press separated cocoa butter from cocoa solids, Fry’s and Lindt made bars and smooth conching, and Peter and Nestlé added milk. West Africa now grows most of the world’s beans, often in conditions that certification schemes exist to improve.

In the kitchen chocolate divides by cocoa content and fat. Cocoa powder is the defatted solids — natural (acidic, sharp) or Dutch-processed (alkalised, darker, milder) — and the two react differently with raising agents. Dark chocolate is cocoa solids and cocoa butter with sugar, labelled by percentage; milk chocolate adds milk solids; white chocolate is cocoa butter, sugar and milk with no cocoa solids at all. Mexican cooking chocolate, coarse and cinnamon-scented, is for drinks and moles; the Oaxacan and Pueblan moles are the great savoury use of chocolate, a square or two deepening a chilli sauce.

Varieties

• Dark chocolate (55–75%) — The cooking chocolate for mousses, ganache, brownies and sauces; 70% is the standard for depth without bitterness.
• Very dark and unsweetened (85–100%) — For adjusting sweetness yourself and for savoury uses; unsweetened is pure cocoa liquor.
• Milk and white chocolate — Sweeter and softer; for eating, fillings and blond ganaches. White chocolate scorches easily.
• Cocoa powder (natural and Dutch-processed) — Natural for recipes with baking soda; Dutched for a darker colour and smoother flavour with baking powder.
• Mexican chocolate (Ibarra, Abuelita, Oaxacan tablets) — Coarse-ground with sugar and cinnamon; for hot chocolate whisked with a molinillo, and for moles.
• Cocoa nibs and cocoa butter — Roasted crushed beans, bitter and crunchy, for texture; pure cocoa fat for tempering and coating.

In the kitchen

Melt chocolate gently — chopped, over barely simmering water or in short bursts in a microwave, stirring — and never let water splash in, which makes it seize into a grainy mass; if it seizes, stir in a tablespoon of hot cream or butter. For ganache, pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and stir from the centre. For tempering (a glossy, snapping coating), melt to 45°C, cool to 27°C, warm to 31°C — or seed with unmelted chocolate.

Cocoa powder is bitter and dry; bloom it in hot liquid or fat before it goes into a batter for the fullest flavour, and match natural cocoa with baking soda and Dutched with baking powder. Chocolate in a mole is a seasoning — a square or two of Mexican chocolate or dark chocolate in a pot of chilli sauce for depth, not sweetness. It pairs with coffee, orange, cardamom, chilli, salt, hazelnut, cherry and raspberry.

Choosing and keeping

Store chocolate at cool room temperature, wrapped, away from strong smells; the fridge causes bloom — a harmless grey-white surface from fat or sugar migrating — and condensation. Dark chocolate keeps two years; milk and white a year. Bloomed chocolate is fine to cook with.

For cooking, buy chocolate labelled with its cocoa percentage from a maker rather than ‘cooking chocolate’, which is often low in cocoa butter and high in vegetable fat. Fairtrade and direct-trade labels address the industry’s labour problems. Cocoa powder keeps two years sealed.

Chocolate and cocoa is tagged on 152 dishes from 72 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.