CHOCOLATE - HOW IS IT MADE AND WHY IS IT SO GOOD
Cacao beans are pretty awful when they are not roasted. It is said that during the English-Spanish wars in the Caribbean, during the 16th century, when an English ship captured a Spanish load of cacao beans, they threw them all overboard. "So disgusting", the English said. Too bad they didn't roast these beans! Fortunately, the idea or the coincidence of roasted cacao beans was already discovered, and it originates from the Indians. Noone really knows how the history of chocolate started, but we know that Indians are the ones to be thankful for this amazing food. They not only found the roasted cocoa beans tasty, they also started to grind them and that's how the first chocolate came about.
Eventually, chocolate started to become more and more popular and it was even used as a medicine during the older days of civilization. Needless to say, people still find chocolate to be a god-given allround well being-promoting food. And it is really healthy, especially if you cut off the sugar or eat the darker forms of chocolate. Also, milk chocolate, made by mixing chocolate and milk, has been praised for its healthy properties. Fortunately then, chocolate is not only a candy that spices up our lives, it also gives us many important and fine nutrients. There is nothing wrong with being chocoholic.
The cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, is very sensitive to strong winds and strong sunlight. For this reason, on plantages, they are usually protected by other bigger trees that are cultivated around the cacao trees. They are always bearing their fruits - cucumber-shaped yellow or red fruits filled with 30-50 beans of cacao. The trees also bear flowers, fairly the same yellow color as the fruits.
Cacao is usually divided into two sorts - criollo and forastero. Criollo grows in Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Java, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Madagascar and Samoa. Criollo beans are more round and they need less time to ferment, as compared to forastero beans. Criollo is the bean that gives the best cacao, but it's also the most sensitive and hardest to cultivate. It stands for just 5% of the world production of cacao, but its taste is delicate and flowery, with some tints of tea. Forastero is the commonest cacao bean, and it is used in 80% of the world cacao production. It gives the darkest chocolate, although not the best chocolate. Even if Criollo is lighter, it is still considered superior, so the saying that the darkest chocolate is the best is not entirely justified. There also exists a bean that has been brought about by mixing Criollo and Forastero. It is called Trinitario, and it gives a nice chocolate although the taste depends a lot on where the bean was cultivated. Trinitario is grown in the Carribean, Venezuela, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Sumatra. Besides these beans, there also exist some bastardized versions of cacao beans, created in attempt to just extract cacao butter, yet they are completely worthless for production of chocolate.
The procedure of processing cacao beans is pretty straightforward: the cacao fruits are opened, the beans are picked out and left to ferment together with the rests of the fruits, and then they are dried to discourage growth of bacteria. Then, in this condition, they can be exported to chocolate producers that take care of roasting, grinding, and all necessary, sometimes secret, procedures that will promote the edible tastful flavor of chocolate as we know it. Fermentation process is taken care of by the microbes, and so it has to be controlled. Normally, one fermentation takes 2-8 days, and its driven by (in turn) yeast, lactic acid bacteria, and acetic acid bacteria - all depending on the supply of nutrients and oxygen. Fermentation is mainly a process that proceeds within the pulp of the cacao fruit, although the bean is affected as well. Acetic acid from bacteria drills holes in the beans, allowing for a blending of the different molecules of cacao bean. New aromas are formed, in other words. One thing to notice is that the astringent substances mix with other molecules, making the overall flavor less astringent. The beans will also take up some of the flavor of the fruit pulp, making the cacao more flowery or fruity. In a nutshell then, fermentation affects the overall flavor of the upcoming chocolate and selection of properly fermented cacao beans is crucial for the making of a perfect chocolate.
How was cacao discovered? Setting aside the legends of Quetzalcoatl who supposedly drank cacao for the first time (which made him all-knowing), the historical records tell that cacao, or cacahuatl, was brought about and popularized thanks to an old emperor of toltecs. This man was so powerful he promoted trade across the American mainland and with people living far away from his empire. Lots of raw products and foods were probably introduced to his people. Notably, he also shunned the human sacrifices that the old indians were into whenever they wanted to please their gods. Anyway, the first cacao tree probably originated somewhere in the Amazonas-Orinoco regions, and it was spread out over the rest of America by some nomadic tribes. That's probably how totlecs got their cacao. Later on, when aztecs conquered totlecs, they continued the cacao-drinking tradition, which was eventually discovered by the invading Spanish conquistadors. Before this time, no European man has ever seen a cacao bean.
The emperor of the aztecs, Montezuma, was also impressed by the taste of the cacao. It is said that chocolatl was the only drink he drank. Cacao was also a common object of trade in the Aztec empire, alongside the slaves or gold. And when Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador who defeated Montezuma, entered the Aztec treasury he saw a big mountain of cacao beans. Even if disappointed of not finding too much gold there, he quickly realized that cacao beans could be sold for gold, and maybe also brought into the Spanish market. Also, the conquistadors used chocolate drinks for strengthening their endurance during long tiresome marches. Their chocolate drinks were basically made of shaved cacao beans, spices, and water, which were whisked together.
Cacao beans had monetary value in America. For a hundred prime cacao beans it was possible to buy oneself a wife or a slave! So was not the case in Europe, but as soon as the first cacao products were flourishing in Spain, the conquistadors knew that they were on to some big business. And the Spanish started their own cacao tree plantages and kept them in America, while shipping the beans to Europe. The reason of course was to have monopoly of production. They also managed to create some "secret" tales and myths about cacao which made the product even more desirable. At the time someone found that cacao could be mixed with sugar, a real explosion of chocolate drinking started. More experimenting with new chocolate flavors that were better suited for the European palates saw the entry of vanilla, cinammon, and nuts into the chocolate products.
Chocolate started to spread throughout Europe and became a favorite and sort of necessary drink at royal banquets. It was trendy to drink chocolate. Most of the cacao still came from Spain's plantages in America, but soon France started their own plantages in the Carribean Martinique. Besides the cacao trade, books and treatises were written on chocolate. It became so popular that some people started to see it as sinful and detrimental to the health, just to counter the trend. Some people believed that drinking chocolate during pregnancy could create newborn babies colored as dark as Satan himself. But still, these warning voices did not gain much respect among the rest of the European population. It went even so far that the Church, initially hostile to chocolate, soon accepted the drink. Not only that, it also saw it as an acceptable drink to intake during periods of fasting (Lent). As they said, it is a drink as much as wine or beer, so it cannot be classified as food, despite its nutritional load. And so, even the priests started to enjoy their doses of chocolate.
The industrial production of chocolate started as the industrial revolution began, although the tempo of development was slow. One of the first inventions came from the English who devised a water wheel-driven cacao bean grinders. The first companies, Fry & Sons (UK) as well as Walter Baker & Co (USA) are still in business today. The first factory in France was Lombard, but they used manual production, although the French soon invented a hydraulic cacao bean mill. Due to the industrialization, the price of chocolate dropped markedly but it was still out of reach for a common man's financial possibilities. The praise for chocolate however never faded, and it was always considered to be a health-promoting, tasteful, energizing drink.
The recipe for a chocolate drink was basically following the simple procedure of mixing ground chocolate with water and possibly sugar, as well as some extra aromas like vanilla or cinnamon. The trick was to produce a drink of the right texture. But when did the solid chocolate came to be? 1828 was the year when a Dutch named van Houten discovered a method for extraction of cacao butter. This butter, being a base ingredient in contemporary chocolate, could be used for making solid chocolate bars. Soon, chocolate production as well as cacao powder production was made effective so the prices could be dropped even more and chocolate became available for every man's palate.
PRODUCTION OF CHOCOLATE
The production of chocolate is a very time-consuming process, in need of great investments. The first step is roasting of the fermented dry cacao beans, after they have been dusted off (cleaned). During roasting, natural chemical reactions produce new aromas and the shell falls off the bean. Roasting is fairly quick, and its timing will affect the final aroma of the chocolate. Even though new aroma is created, too long roasting will destroy some of the fruitiness of the bean. After roasting, the shells are crushed and blown away with hot air. Next is a crucial step that separates the good chocolate makers from the bad. The beans are mixed according to their taste and the desired final product. This is a tough job, and it requires a long time to get perfect.
Once the beans are chosen, they are pressed and crushed under heavy steel rollers. During this process, the cacao butter is extracted, and cocoa powder can also be collected by passing the liquid mass through a special filter. After grinding, the cacao liquor mass is still very acidic and bitter, and it has to go through yet another step of processing that will make it tasty.
The last and important phase of chocolate production is the conching. The cacao mass is now processed in a very powerful kneading machine in a temperature of around 70C/160F, during which the cacao and sugar particles become refined and surrounded by cacao butter. It is now that any sugar or vanilla, or milk solids (for milk chocolates) are added to the cacao liquor. During conching, the chocolate mass becomes smooth and shiny. The fairly high temperature also reduces the water content to less than 1%, and it also helps to evaporate the undesired aromas from the chocolate. In addition, the temperature also contributes to the oxygenation reaction of the sour and bitter flavors in chocolate, as well as intensifying new pleasant aromas, so that the chocolate becomes more pleasant to the human palate. Conching is a very important process then. Towards the end of this process, cocoa butter is added, along with some lecithin. Butter is needed for ample lubrication of the chocolate so it becomes creamy, while lecithin helps dissolve the sugar particles in the butter so that less cocoa butter can be used. The different companies use different conching times. Some producers skip this process entirely, and the result is, well, different. In any case, the warm liquid chocolate is now ready to be cooled and shaped into bars of the desired size and design. Even this procedure is not that simple as it sounds, as then chocolate has to be cooled and rewarmed properly to achieve a glossy and creamy look and taste. It turns out that cocoa butter fat can solidify into different shapes, depending on how it's cooled. If the cooling is uncontrolled, it will become soft and greasy. This must be kept in mind when preparing chocolate dishes at home, and we will return to this issue of TEMPERING further on when we discuss the chocolate cooking skills.
Once the chocolate is produced it has to be stored properly. The best temperature is around 16C/60F, so that the cocoa butter doesn't melt and recrystallize into a strange texture. Sometimes one can see a white powdery layer on the surface of the chocolate, and this is just butter fat that has melted out of its original shape, migrated to the surface and formed crystals there. This "fat bloom" effect can be inhibited by adding some clarified butter to the melted chocolate. There, the fats will be mixed more randomly, thus slowing down the crystal formation. Besides the temperature, it is good to avoid putting the chocolate in open light (or the butter will turn rancid), especially if it is white chocolate that lacks the abundance of antioxidants that the dark chocolates possess. Also, for this reason, white chocolate cannot be stored for too long without developing a rancid flavor.
THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF CHOCOLATE
Milk chocolate is the most popular one, probably due to its mild flavor created by milk and sugar. It is soft, and its cocoa content is relatively low.
Dark chocolates do not contain milk, but they usually contain sugar. They can be bitter, bittersweet, or sweet. Usually, one can see on the label how much of the chocolate comes from cocoa. For example, a label of 70% means that 70% of the chocolate is made of cocoa butter and cocoa solids, the rest being sugar.
White chocolate does not contain any cocoa solids, just pure cocoa butter, hence its white color. For this reason it doesn't have any pure chocolate flavor, although it is tasty in its own class. It usually contains milk solids and sugar.
Couverture chocolate is a special kind of chocolate, formulated to flow smoothly when melted. It is therefore the perfect choice for the chefs that want to use chocolate for thin, nice coatings. Couverture chocolate contains more cocoa butter than other chocolates, bringing the fat content to about 35%.
Fine chocolates are the most expensive ones, and they are made of carefully selected beans that are processed in small batches, to intensify the flavor development. They have more cocoa butter and solids than other chocolates, and so their flavor is more complex.
Cheap chocolates, on the other hand, contain very low amounts of cocoa butter and solids, and the beans are not very carefully selected. As a result, their flavor is not very chocolate-y.
HEALTH BENEFITS OF CHOCOLATE
Cocoa butter contains saturated fat, which is normally correlated with risk of cardiovascular disease. However, not all saturated fats are bad, and the one found in chocolate seems to be one of such fats. It contains a special fatty acid that our body can convert into an unsaturated fat. Besides the fat story, cocoa is beneficial to our health mainly due to its high levels of antioxidants - the ones that prevent development of cancer. Of course, the best chocolates for health are the ones that contain a lot of cocoa, essentially all the dark chocolates. Also, milk chocolates are not so good as the contents of milk seem to bind the antioxidant molecules and prevent them from entering into our bloodstream.
Chocolate and cocoa powder also contain caffeine, in amount of about 1/1000 of the weight of the chocolate. So if you eat a 100 g dark chocolate cake, you will also get 100 mg caffeine into your body. This approximately equals one cup of coffee. But chocolate also has another, although much weaker, stimulant of our awakeness, the compound called theobromine. This molecule in overdoses can make you run to the bathroom, so don't forget to drink some water if you eat too much chocolate. Do these molecules create an addiction for chocolate? Perhaps. Studies have shown that chocolate also contain some molecules that you can find in light drugs, although other foods (not very addictive, that is) also contain such compounds. The addiction to chocolate seems to be a result of simple craving for the special taste sensation.
COOKING WITH CHOCOLATE
One common method of using chocolate in our dishes requires it to be melted. Melting should be done with care, that is, not over a direct stovetop or in a microwave. The trick is to melt it gently, especially when it comes to white or milk chocolates. A classical way to perform chocolate melting is to heat it in a pan that is placed over a simmering hot water. It can be also heated over a stovetop but this requires frequent removal from the heat, as well as stirring, so the chocolate won't burn. It also helps to chop the chocolate into smaller pieces, as they will melt faster.
When melting chocolate, avoid adding water to it, as it will (strangely as it may sound) crumble the chocolate. If you have to add liquid to the chocolate, the amount of the liquid needs to be sufficiently high to dissolve the sugar. Use hot liquid for this job. Hot liquid can also save the chocolate that has been destroyed, just add sufficient amount of it so the chocolate will become liquid again.
When talking about melting and re-solidifying chocolate it is essential to mention the subject of tempering. There is a major rule to be followed that will make melted chocolate solidify back to its previous shape, instead of a weak and loose mass. This rule is followed by the chocolate makers, and it has to be followed by the chefs as well. Tempering chocolate is made by first melting the chocolate gently, then cool it a little to let it reform some of its basic structure, then heat it again to soften the weak structures, and finally solidify the chocolate with only the strong crystals remaining. The trick here then is to find and hold a temperature that melts the weak but preserves the strong butter structures. The weak crystals melt at around the room temperature, while the strong ones melt above 32C/90F (for the dark chocolates). If we cool the chocolate too quickly, that is, well below 32C, then we'll promote formation of the weak structures. So, hold the temperature at the right range and your chocolate will be fine! For dark chocolates, 31-32C/88-90F should be right, for milk chocolates it's 30-31C/86-88F, and for white chocolates that contain lots of milk, it's 27-28C/80-82C.
So how to do the whole tempering procedure? Before you start, get yourself a thermometer to measure the chocolate temperature, and get yourself a pan of simmering water over which you'll be melting the chocolate. Now, heat the chopped chocolate bits in a pan above the simmering water to about 50C/120F until they all melt, and then cool the chocolate down to about our body temperature (or slightly above). Then begin to stir the chocolate as it cools down even further, until it starts to thicken. Now, it's time to hit the tempering temperature (see the right temperatures above for the different kinds of chocolates). Don't stop strirring, as it will help resolve the bad butter crystals. Then, the chocolate is to be kept at this temperature until it's used. But there's another tricky part to take care of. The chocolate cannot be undertempered (containing unstable crystals) or overtempered (too many stable big crystals). These two extremes will be cause by too little stirring and time, and vice-versa, respectively. To test the temper of the chocolate, take a little chocolate and pour it out over a 25C/77F surface. Perfect chocolate should solidify within minutes, and it should have a clean and smooth look and texture. If it's bad, it will be coarse and take more time to solidify.
Now, remember that all this fuss is not necessary if you melt your chocolate directly to the tempering range. You can do that because the chocolate that you buy (I guess it's of a proper quality) has already been tempered and so it contains strong butter crystals. But if you fail, and you overheat it, you'll need to follow the above procedure.
Once you have your tempered chocolate it has to be used properly! The cake or candy that you pour your chocolate over has to be well-tempered as well. It cannot be too cold, because the chocolate will solidify too quickly, and it cannot be too hot because the butter crystals will be destroyed. All the work will be for nothing! A simple rule to follow is to keep your other ingredients (that you pour the chocolate over) at about 25C/77F.