Which of your chocolates are made
of coventure?
Chocolate Liquor
The ground up center (nib) of the cocoa bean.
Cocoa Butter
An oily product which is an essential fatty part of the cocoa bean. Cocoa Butter is a natural fat extracted from chocolate liquor under high
pressure.
Bittersweet Chocolate
Dark Chocolate that contains a minimum of 35% chocolate liquor Bittersweet and semi-sweet
both fall under this definition, however, bittersweet is traditionally the term reserved
from chocolate with a minimum of 50% chocolate liquor.
Semi Sweet Cackled
Also known as bittersweet chocolate. Contains a minimum of 35% chocolate liquor.
Cocoa Bean
Seeds from a pod of the Theobroma tree. Native to the tropical Amazon forests.
Commercially grown worldwide in tropical rain forests within 20 degrees latitude of the
equator.
Milk Chocolate
Chocolate with at least 10% chocolate liquor and 12% mild solids, combined with sugar,
cocoa, butter, lecithin and vanilla.
Cocoa Powder
The cocoa solids resulting from pressing the cocoa butter out of chocolate liquor. May be
natural or "dutched".
Dutched Process
A treatment used during the making of cocoa powder. Cocoa solids are treated with an
alkaline solution to neutralize the natural acidity. This process darkens the cocoa and
develops a milder flavor.
Tempering
In order to stabilize chocolate, a heating and cooling process is needed. This stabilized
the cocoa butter, avoiding crystallization and giving a good surface gloss.
Conche Process
A machine which is constantly agitating the chocolate, thereby achieving desirable flavors
and liquefying the refined chocolate mass.
Compound or Confectionery Coating
A blend of cocoa powder, sugar and vegetable oil. By substituting the vegetable oil for
the cocoa butter, melting is easier but the results are not as high in quality.
Read more about Chocolate:
 Chocolate Tempering
Dipping Nuts in Chocolate
Only Some Chocolate Is Heart Healthy -
Researchers
By Susan Nadeau
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chocolate and cocoa may help
prevent heart attacks, researchers said on Wednesday, but don't run to the
office vending machine yet.
So far, available chocolate products are known to contain high levels of
flavanol, the substance linked to heart health, they said.
Flavanols are naturally occurring compounds in many plants or plant-based
foods such as vegetables, fruits, red wine and cocoa. They are thought to have
an effect on vascular dilation, or a relaxing of the muscles around blood
vessels, which helps keep blood flowing through the vessels.
Research also suggests flavanols enhance nitric oxide, which causes arteries
to dilate and increases blood flow, keeping potentially dangerous deposits from
adhering to artery walls.
And flavanols may have an aspirin-like effect on platelets, reducing blood
clotting linked to heart attacks.
Marguerite Engler, professor and vice chair of the Department of
Physiological Nursing, University of California at San Francisco, was an
investigator in a study that compared the Dove dark chocolate to another dark
chocolate bar and to aspirin.
The study, presented at the American Heart Association meeting this week in Chicago, was independently funded.
In the study, 21 people ate 46 grams -- an average-sized candy bar -- of
either chocolate each day for two weeks.
The researchers found the subjects who ate the flavanol-rich Dove dark
chocolate showed blood vessel dilation two hours after eating the candy, as
measured by an ultrasound of a main artery.
"It's a great alternative, but people still need to be aware there are
calories in chocolate," Engler said in an interview. "People should realize that
you still should be eating healthy and exercising too.
Engler also said that "the response was more robust" when people took a low
dose of aspirin instead of chocolate.
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