Discover Chocolate and Live La Vida Cocoa!

Cocoa butter and cocoa solids

Hans has a very thought provoking article in Cocoa Content called "Why cocoa content matters". In it he shows a very insightful way to determine the amount of cocoa butter. Here's the essence of it:

Cocoa content only tells you how much of the bar’s weight is comprised of cocoa solids. Now, it’s important to understand that “cocoa solids” refers to the chocolate’s combined weight of cocoa butter and dry cocoa particles (i.e. cocoa powder). You can find the amount of cocoa butter from the amount of fat, though. Once you have that you can determine the percentage of the rest of the solids.
Follow these steps from the nutrition label:
1. Note the serving size, since it varies.
2. Note the Total Fat The Fat is from cocoa butter
3. Divide the Total Fat by the Serving size (Fat/Size), then multiply by 100 to get the percentage of fat
4. Subtract the percentage of fat from the cacao percentage and the difference will tell you what percentage of the bar consists of dry cocoa solids. Cocoa butter percentage + cocoa solids percentage = Total cacao percentage.
For example, consider a bar of Lindt Excellence 70%. The Nutrition Facts show the serving size as 42g, with 17g of fat. Divide 17 by 42 and multiply the result by 100, and you’ll get 40. This means there’s 40% cocoa butter. Subtract that number from 70, which in this case is 30% dry cocoa solids . (40 + 30 = 70)
-----------------------------

What do you think of this?

Tags: butter, fat

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on June 30, 2008 at 9:40pm: Then again, I could just simply be wrong :D The jury is still out ....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Edward on July 1, 2008 at 11:53am: I think that sugar is the perfect medium to increase WEIGHT without increasing volume.

When you make sugar syrup and add sugar to the water, the water level hardly rises. With meringues you are gaining volume by beating in air.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on July 1, 2008 at 12:12pm: Yes, but the water evaporates when making syrup, that is why the water level doesn't rise.

It isn't only air that adds volume, it is the ability of sugar to attach and bind with the other food particles helping to maintain the increase in volume. When sugar is beaten into butter, what happens? When sugar is beaten into egg yolks, what happens? When sugar is made into cotton candy, what happens? Yes, aeration is great, but it is the change in the crystalline structure of the sugar that helps to maintain the volume/shape of the newly created food product.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Hans on July 1, 2008 at 3:33pm: Gwen, unless you're suggesting that you can compress a given amount of sugar and incorporate the mass into chocolate liquor so as to make more room for cocoa solids (butter and particles), then what you really get is more chocolate to be packaged and sold. You get heavier mass, in other words, and I'm not certain how the sugar would interact with the cocoa solids but from what I've seen, chocolate makers don't make a big science out of it. They just add sugar and incorporate.

A Cluizel bar containing 60% cocoa butter? That seems unlikely; not even Hachez has that much. I have a bar of Cluizel's Tamarina 70% here and it includes a nutrition label printed (not adhered) on the box. The bar, according to my calculations, is 42.5% fat (17g of fat per 40g of chocolate), so combined with the 30% sugar, we get a remaining ~30% in cocoa particles.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by increasing the volume of a chocolate bar. Is this similar to increasing volume in a meringue? Are you implying you make the chocolate mass fluffier, more airy?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on July 1, 2008 at 3:44pm: Yes, that is what I am implying. This way, the flavor bonds to the sugar & cocoa butter molecules and flavor is intensified in each bite.

When we speak about breaking up molecules and forming new bonds, the sugar is an important part of the science behind the candy bar, or any sweet. Hence, the entire category of pastry, sweets, desserts. This is why pastry chefs learn how to work with chocolate, not bakers or savory chefs. It is a big science. This is exactly my point.

In order to move chocolate forward for even greater flavor and quality, one must understand each of the parts that make up the chocolate bar. It can be viewed metaphysically: not a single part of the chocolate bar is greater than the whole.

So many become overly focused on the bean, when in fact, an equal amount of focus must be given to the sugar and the cocoa butter in order to understand how all three work together to produce a premium bar of chocolate.

Cluizel uses different amounts of cocoa butter in all of their products. Give Jacques a call in NJ to find out the different cocoa butter contents in their line of chocolates, including their bon-bons. I could be wrong on the 60%, but it is up there on many of the items at least 54% or edging higher.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Edward on July 1, 2008 at 11:08pm: No, I meant sugar by itself doesn't add volume.

Try it for yourself: Fill a measuring cup 3/4 full of water and start dumping sugar in. You can put more sugar than the amount of water in. No heat required, no evaporation loss. I can beat butter with a whisk and gain incredible amounts of volume without adding anything, (a'la "light" or "Diet" butter...) same for eggwhites--as in hot savoury souffles. (although I need sugar for stability in meringues and cold applications) Cotton candy is spun through a tiny orifice at high speeds, it's the gaps and spaces inbetween the tiny spun threads that account for the volume. (this principle is used for fiberglass insulation--it's the air trapped between the spun glass that provide the r-value or insulation, not the spun glass)

Sugar by itself doesn't add volume.

What percentage of sugar does Cluizel use in his products? I must confess, I've never tried his stuff yet, there are enough places to buy it around here though.

Sugar is cheaper than chocolate, which is why the "cheaper" mnfctrs dump the stuff, up to 60% of sugar, in the cheap chocolate. The "good" mnfctrs only add enough to tame the flavour.

Heck, old Hershey himself had a sugar plantation in Cuba just to support his factory, even had a little minature train to transport the sugar to port. Apparantly the train still exists and runs daily....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on July 2, 2008 at 8:11am: This is a fun discussion :D

But the key is that the sugar maintains the volume, as you state above when you say you add it for "stability". This is in agreement with what I say when I suggest that sugar is the key in combining and maintaining the quality of cocoa butter and cacao solids in a bar to maintain even distribution of flavor. The way sugar is incorporated is key for its ability to bind molecules in a way to distribute flavor and keep particles separated so that maximum blending is achieved to convey flavor in every bite.

What you are referring to is "displacement" theory. Sugar, based on how it is incorporated, does add volume once the molecules and crystalline structure starts to mutate.

In the scenario you describe, at some point, the sugar is absorbing the water and a transference occurs which would give the visual appearance of no change in volume. Add heat and bingo, the sugar appears to "dissolve" which is ultra common in the way people add sugar to coffee and tea. Add air and shazzam, you've grown an entire ball of hard candy. Add butter and miracle of miracles you have caramel, lots of it :D

Like I said before, I love my job.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Edward on July 2, 2008 at 10:34am: No, I don't think sugar is key to combining and maintaining the quality of cocoa butter and solids. I have sampled some very fine couvetures with 70%, 80% and 90% cocoa content, and while very intense and powerfull, the mouthfeel/texture is smooooth. IMHO the texture and suaveness of couveture is from the skill in conching, not from sugar.

"Displacement" theory or not, if I make a sugar syrup starting with one liter of water and two kgs of sugar, boil it all I want, I'll still end up with one liter of syrup. No volume is ever gained.

I don't know of any sugar confection that gains volume once the "molecules and crystalline structure starts to mutate". Could you please furnish some examples?

I, too, love my job, and make caramel on a weekly basis, but it's never gained volume on me....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on July 2, 2008 at 11:08am: Fine. We'll have to discuss this in a different forum. Will email you with examples.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on July 2, 2008 at 11:50am: For what it is worth, I know this does not address the cocoa butter, or aeration/volume discussion regarding sugar, but does address the organic interaction of sugar and cacao and how in my mind the entire bar must be viewed "organically", meaning every part of the equation/formula in the production of the bar is significant. (I hope you don't mind Alan, but I do find your information insightful and helpful in this situation.) It is quoted from Alan McClure on the CacaoLab website interview:

"Additionally, I am also very much a proponent of putting sugar and cacao in close proximity to each other for as long as is prudent, as there are certainly interactions between organic compounds in cacao and sugar during such processes that can lead to positive flavor changes; this is especially the case in a heated environment heavy in various organic acids. For this reason, I see separate sugar-refining mills as a step backward to the production of fine chocolate, and also would not advocate per se chocolate-making processes that seek to reduce refining and conching time of the chocolate to a bare minimum. This being the case, I am not opposed to using scientific understanding of organic compound interactions in chocolate to alter chocolate-manufacturing machinery in ways that result in more flavorful chocolate in shorter times, but it seems to me that this is the opposite direction from the one taken by machinery manufacturers over the past 100 years, i.e., the focus has been more on speed and cost-cutting than flavor. Of course there will be disagreements over this issue depending upon the person to whom you are talking. However, I believe that most of the new micro-processors in the US will be in general agreement on this point. I do hasten to add, though, that there is certainly no one way to make chocolate, and if there was, then the chocolate-world would be a very boring one indeed. Every maker of chocolate must find what works best for her, and what meshes best with her underlying philosophy and the resources at hand."; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gwen Borders on July 14, 2008 at 8:53pm: Hi Edward :-) - Just a friendly lesson gleaned from my distant past as a philosophy major. Kindly enjoy the following passage:

"It is most famously attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes; he reportedly proclaimed, "Eureka!" when he stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose – he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. This meant that the volume of irregular objects could be calculated with precision, a previously intractable problem. He is said to have been so eager to share his realisation that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.

Archimedes' insight led to the solution of a problem posed by Hiero of Syracuse, on how to assess the purity of an irregular golden crown. Equipment for weighing objects already existed, and now that Archimedes could also measure volume, their ratio would give the object's density, an important indicator of purity."

My suggestion - let's duplicate the experiment in order to understand volume. Perhaps we should all step into a pool of melted chocolate while dumping bags of sugar into the swirling mass. The question remains, what will we exclaim once we understand the scientific and mathematical principles involved as we wade in melted chocolate? :-) Not to mention, what will we wear for such an occasion?

Best regards,
Gwen; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Hans on July 2, 2008 at 1:38pm: I can find a few problems with aerating chocolate:

1) Because chocolate expands and contracts over time, excess air reduces the density of the mass and facilitates cracking and eventual crumbling of the bar.

2) Air causes oxidation, which reduces shelf life of a product. A perfect example is whipped cream, which has a shelf life significantly less than that of its non-whipped counterpart.

3) Excess air in the bar interferes with the chocolate-tongue contact so flavor dispersal is much more uneven and erratic.

4) Density of texture would be affected so that the bar appears lighter and not as "rich" as a non-aerated bar of chocolate.

However, I found a few useful links:

Barry Callebaut

Spartak (in Belarus)

ZOMG Candy Blog

That blog is of particular interest because it provides a picture and a description of a cross sectioned (aerated) Spartak 72% dark bar. (You can find it easily by doing a control F for "spartak elite.") The air bubbles are clearly visible, which contrasts with Callebaut's micro bubbles.; ▶ Reply to This