Your Essential Guide to Baking with Chocolate
Calling all chocoholics! Learn to bake with chocolate. Discover the difference between bittersweet and milk chocolate, explore the magic of cocoa and store your chocolate right to avoid the dreaded "bloom."
For those of us who find ourselves weak in the knees at the word of "cocoa," this is your moment. We take you not into the realm of the mindless candy bar unwrapping, but into the sacred art of culinary co-creation with chocolate – the mischievous muse of the kitchen.
Our journey of discovery begins with the cacao bean, a tropical treasure found within the pod of the Theobroma cacao tree. This diminutive seed holds the key to unlocking a combination of flavors. Harvested, fermented, sun-kissed, and roasted, the beans are then ground into a thick paste – the very essence of chocolate, known as chocolate liquor. This isn't your average after-dinner drink, mind you. It's a potent blend of roughly 55% cocoa butter (the luscious fat that gives chocolate its melt-in-your-mouth quality) and 45% cocoa solids, the secret ingredient that bestows that rich, decadent chocolate flavor.
