Ingredient Spotlight: Chocolate

Chocolate.  Decadent and delicious, and able to sooth emotions with a single taste.  This makes it the superhero of ingredients.  Chocolate is also extremely versatile.    It can be used to make drinks, sauces, cakes, pies, truffles, torts, mousse, and so much more.  The recipes and uses are endless.

And now to demonstrate, here is a video on how to make Chocolate Moose!

Thank you Chef for that wonderful demonstration! 🙂

Chocolate is classified by the percentage of chocolate liquor it contains.  Baking chocolate is cocoa liquor with no sugar, milk or flavorings.  Bitter chocolate is 90 percent chocolate liquor.  Baking and bitter (these are also sometimes known as unsweetened chocolate) are what you will find when you purchase baking squares.

Bittersweet chocolate is at least 35 percent liquor.  Semisweet chocolate is 15 to 30 percent liquor.  Milk chocolate is at least 10 percent liquor and 12 percent whole milk. These have also had different amounts of sugar added to create the different types.

White chocolate is an interesting species.  It contains no chocolate liquor so it is not considered a “true” chocolate.  However, it does contain cocoa butter so it still comes from the cacao plant.

The word chocolate comes from the Aztex word, xocalatl which means food of the gods.  And is it any wonder!

Below are some great dishes from Green Door Hospitality that include Chocolate.  Simply click on the image to be taken to recipe!