Cocoa percentages: not so easy to find your way around!
I have to admit, it took me quite a while to fully understand what cocoa percentage really means. For the chocolate we produce in our factory, it's simple: an 80% chocolate contains only two ingredients - 80% cocoa beans and 20% sugar. Basta! For industrial chocolate it gets more complicated, and not nearly...
[custom_headline type="left" level="h2" looks_like="h6" accent="false"]Cocoa Powder, Cocoa Mass and Cocoa Butter[/custom_headline]
Industrial chocolates are made from a blend of cocoa powder, cocoa butter and cocoa mass. It is the mixture of these 3 ingredients that corresponds to the percentage of cocoa. It is therefore impossible from the percentage of cocoa to know what proportion of cocoa mass in relation to cocoa butter. It can lead to funny situations. A few weeks ago I tasted a bar of milk chocolate with a percentage of 50%. Yet this bar barely tasted like cocoa! Looking at the ingredients, I could guess that the tablet contained (almost) only cocoa butter. It is therefore REALLY difficult to guess the contents of a chocolate bar from the percentage of cocoa. In fact, the only certainty that we can have from the percentage of cocoa is the amount of sugar. For example, a 70% chocolate contains 30% sugar. Or an 85% tablet contains 15% sugar.
[custom_headline type="left" level="h2" looks_like="h6" accent="false"]Read the ingredients carefully[/custom_headline]
Morality? Do not blindly rely on the percentage of cocoa. Also read the chocolate ingredients and you will have a better idea of what is in your bar. If the first ingredient in a chocolate bar is not cocoa or cocoa mass or cocoa paste , beware! In the end, it is in the cocoa bean that we find all the taste and the virtues for health.[custom_headline type="left" level="h2" looks_like="h6" accent="false"]Percentage of cocoa = Quality?[/custom_headline]And if you think that the quality of a chocolate is directly proportional to the percentage of cocoa, sorry to disappoint you, but you are in the field! Some 80-85% cocoa chocolate bars are downright inedible because there is less sugar to camouflage the flaws of the cocoa.
[custom_headline type="left" level="h2" looks_like="h6" accent="false"]Cocoa Powder, Cocoa Mass and Cocoa Butter[/custom_headline]
Industrial chocolates are made from a blend of cocoa powder, cocoa butter and cocoa mass. It is the mixture of these 3 ingredients that corresponds to the percentage of cocoa. It is therefore impossible from the percentage of cocoa to know what proportion of cocoa mass in relation to cocoa butter. It can lead to funny situations. A few weeks ago I tasted a bar of milk chocolate with a percentage of 50%. Yet this bar barely tasted like cocoa! Looking at the ingredients, I could guess that the tablet contained (almost) only cocoa butter. It is therefore REALLY difficult to guess the contents of a chocolate bar from the percentage of cocoa. In fact, the only certainty that we can have from the percentage of cocoa is the amount of sugar. For example, a 70% chocolate contains 30% sugar. Or an 85% tablet contains 15% sugar.
[custom_headline type="left" level="h2" looks_like="h6" accent="false"]Read the ingredients carefully[/custom_headline]
Morality? Do not blindly rely on the percentage of cocoa. Also read the chocolate ingredients and you will have a better idea of what is in your bar. If the first ingredient in a chocolate bar is not cocoa or cocoa mass or cocoa paste , beware! In the end, it is in the cocoa bean that we find all the taste and the virtues for health.[custom_headline type="left" level="h2" looks_like="h6" accent="false"]Percentage of cocoa = Quality?[/custom_headline]And if you think that the quality of a chocolate is directly proportional to the percentage of cocoa, sorry to disappoint you, but you are in the field! Some 80-85% cocoa chocolate bars are downright inedible because there is less sugar to camouflage the flaws of the cocoa.