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Vegan Chocolates Contents
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Origins and history of Chocolate
Originally thought to have been discovered by the Aztecs, archaeological evidence now dates the use of chocolate to the earlier Maya civilisation. A thousand years ago in Mexico cocoa beans served as currency and were also used at the heart of many rituals and ceremonies.
Spanish explorers of Mexico introduced Europe to drinking chocolate at the start of the 17th century, but by the middle of the 17th century the solid confection made from roasted ground cacao seed was becoming familiar and over the centuries became even more popular than the drink version.
The word "chocolate" derives from the Mayan "xocoatl" and the word cocoa from the Aztec "cacahuatl." The Mexican Indian word "chocolate" comes from a combination of the terms "choco" (foam) and "atl" (water).
Plain chocolate is little more than pure chocolate liquor (the nibs from the beans heated and ground until reduced to an oily liquid) moulded into blocks and chilled. Fry & Sons, an English firm, combined cocoa butter with chocolate liquor and sugar in 1847 to produce eating, or sweet, chocolate. Milk chocolate was developed in 1876 by Daniel Peter, a Swiss, by adding milk solids to chocolate liquor. White chocolate contains only the cocoa butter from the cacao bean, not the dark solids.
Chocolate and cocoa are derived from the pods of the cacao tree, indigenous to the American tropics. Most cocoa comes from the species “Theobroma Cacao”, which translates as “food of the gods”.
The cacao tree grows up to 25 feet high and bears clusters of flowers which produce large oval pods, the shape of a rugby ball, ranging in colour from white to pink to yellow.
Each pod carries 30-45 seeds or beans, which are stored in boxes in their own gooey white pulp for about five days until fermentation takes place. The action of fermentation kills the beans and breaks down the sugars whilst other compounds and enzymes react together to start making the bean have what we recognise as a “chocolate” taste. The beans contain 49% oil, 18% protein, 10% starch and 7% other carbohydrates.
Next, the beans are dried in the sun for a week, blasted with heat to get the nibs out of their shells, and then these nibs are roasted at over 100 degrees Celsius. The roasted nibs are ground until the fat in them liquefies; the rich, dark liquid is then cooled in moulds to make slabs of pure dark chocolate. Cocoa is obtained by removing a large part of the fat from the nibs and then powdering the cooled slabs.
To make eating chocolate the pure liquor has sugar and possibly a flavouring, such as vanilla, added and is then stirred together at a controlled temperature in a process known as “conching”. Extra cocoa butter or alternative cheaper fats are added at the end of conching to make the chocolate smooth and to help it melt more easily in the mouth. Vanillin, which is an artificial flavouring, and vegetable fat, give chocolate a very different flavour and texture from chocolate that contains natural vanilla and cocoa butter. Unfermented bulk beans are often used in cheaper chocolate blends and processed differently with the addition of strong flavour. “Cocoa solids” is the term used to describe the total amount of cocoa-derived material in a finished chocolate.
The complex flavour of chocolate is created by 550 flavour compounds found in cocoa after fermentation, drying, roasting and conching – far more than in most foods. A carrot has only 96 flavour compounds!
Bibliography:
Dictionary of Gastronomy by Andre L. Simon & Robin Howe (1978)
The Glutton’s Glossary – A Dictionary of Food and Drink Terms by John Ayto (1990)
The World Encyclopaedia of Food by L. Patrick Coyle (1982)
Green & Black’s Chocolate Recipes by Caroline Jeremy (2003)
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Feature Products
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Booja Booja Truffles
are dairy-free, gluten-free, organic, suitable for vegans/lactose intolerant, low in sugar and extremely delicious too.
Around Midnight espresso truffles These espresso truffles are so packed with flavour, one gives you the entire chocolate and coffee fix you need (56% cocoa content). Voted 'Best Organic Product' in 2000 these Booja Booja hand made chocolates are the (organic) business.
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Green & Black’s Chocolate Recipes
Full of scrumptious recipes and interesting background information about the history of chocolate (roasted ground cacao seed)
Recipes by Caroline Jeremy (2003)
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