By Dan McCoy
People ask this at the shop in Fredericksburg. Dark chocolate people, usually. They decided white chocolate is fake because it is not brown.
Is white chocolate real chocolate? The question is the fat. Did it come from the cacao bean, or from a tank of vegetable oil.
Hill Country Chocolate is at 144 Industrial Loop. We make chocolate. We are not naming a white bar here. This is the definition.
What is white chocolate
Start with the cacao bean. Two things come out of the nib: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The solids are brown. They carry most of the flavor people call chocolate. The cocoa butter is pale fat pressed from the same nib.
Dark and milk chocolate keep both. White chocolate keeps the fat and leaves the solids behind. Then you add sugar and milk.
So what is white chocolate made of. Cocoa butter. Sugar. Milk solids.
What is white chocolate made from is the same list. The nib is ground. The liquor is pressed. The fat comes out pale. The brown cake stays behind. No bleach. The ivory is the color of cocoa butter.
The bean is still in the chocolate bar. The solids were pressed out. The fat stayed.
White chocolate ingredients and the cocoa butter test
Real white chocolate has cocoa butter as the fat. In the US, the FDA standard of identity for white chocolate says the fat has to come from the cacao bean. At least 20 percent cocoa butter. Milk solids and milkfat on top of that. A cap on sugar.
The fat has to come from the bean. That is the test.
The other product sits next to it on the shelf. White coating. Confectionery coating. Sometimes the bag says white chocolate flavored. The fat is not cocoa butter. It is usually palm kernel oil or another vegetable fat.
Cocoa butter melts near body temperature. That is why real chocolate goes on the tongue and then is gone. Palm kernel oil stays solid longer. It can leave a film.
Real white chocolate ingredients: cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, often vanilla.
Coating ingredients: vegetable fat, sugar, milk solids, flavor.
They look the same. One is white chocolate. One is not.
Is white chocolate a type of chocolate
People who say no mean this: no cocoa solids, so it is not chocolate. The brown part of the nib is gone. The compounds that make a dark bar taste like a dark bar are not in white chocolate. That part is true.
The cocoa butter in real white chocolate still came from the cacao bean. Same bean. Solids out. Fat in.
So is white chocolate a type of chocolate. If the fat is cocoa butter, yes. If the fat is palm kernel oil in white packaging, no. That is coating.
The question is not the color. Is white chocolate actually chocolate. Look at the fat.
White chocolate cocoa, if you mean cocoa solids, is none. If you mean cocoa butter, that is the whole product. Most people see no brown and assume no cacao. The label tells you.
What flavor is white chocolate
Cocoa butter is mild. A little floral. A little like the fat of the bean, which is what it is. It does not taste like a dark bar, because that taste lives in the solids that are not here.
Real white chocolate leans on milk and sugar. Creamy. Sweet. A clean melt. Nothing waxy left behind.
What flavor is white chocolate from a bag of coating. Sugar and wax. The vegetable fat does not melt clean. It sits. There is no cocoa butter in it, so there is nothing from the bean to taste.
If you have only eaten the coating, you have not tasted white chocolate with cocoa butter. Those are two different things. One melts and leaves. The other sits on the teeth.
How to tell real white chocolate from coating
Read the label.
Find the fats. If the first fat is cocoa butter, you have real white chocolate. If the first fat is palm kernel oil, palm oil, or hydrogenated vegetable oil, you have coating.
Real white chocolate snaps. Not like a 70 percent dark bar. A clean break. It melts on the tongue. It does not smear.
Coating smears. It resists the melt. It feels greasy because the fat is not cocoa butter.
If the label says white chocolate flavored, or confectionery coating, it is not white chocolate. The bag already said so.
If the label says white chocolate and cocoa butter is in the ingredients, that is the real product.
The fat tells you
We make chocolate in Fredericksburg. We are not inventing a white chocolate SKU here. We press cacao. This question comes up enough to write it down.
If you want real white chocolate, look for cocoa butter on the label. That is the whole argument.
144 Industrial Loop. 830-992-3277.