Best bitter chocolate

Chocolate is the most popular sweet in the world. But even before chocolate became as we know it now, the Mayan and Aztec Indians, who lived in Central America, made a bitter cold drink from cocoa beans, adding pepper and other hot spices to it. Then the Spaniards, who conquered the Aztecs and brought cocoa beans to Europe, began to add sugar and cinnamon to chocolate and serve an exotic cocoa drink hot. And only in the middle of the 19th century the first slab chocolate appeared by the efforts of the English. The best bitter chocolate will be discussed in this ranking.

How to choose a good bitter chocolate

According to the branch GOST of Russia, bitter chocolate is a product made on the basis of cocoa products and sugar, in it (chocolate) there should be at least 55% of the total dry residue of cocoa products and at least 33% of cocoa butter (including).

At the same time, bitter (it is sometimes called black) and dark chocolate is not the same thing, since dark chocolate (according to the same GOST) should contain 40% of the total dry residue of cocoa products, including at least 20%. cocoa butter, i.e. dark chocolate has less cocoa products than bitter ones.

Information on the mass fraction of total cocoa solids is mandatory for labeling, for bitter chocolate it is at least 55%. This label should pay attention in the first place. Then you need to study the composition: the smaller the ingredients, the better. Ideally, only cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar should be indicated in the composition.

In addition to the main components in the composition of chocolate can be soy lecithin and flavors. Lecithin does not pose any health hazard and is used as an emulsifier in the production of chocolate, i.e. a substance that helps to mix fat and water, which, as is well known, under normal conditions do not mix with each other. Fat in this case is cocoa butter, and water is traces of moisture that contain sugar crystals. Moisture reduces the wetting effect of cocoa butter, which negatively affects the fluidity of the chocolate during the molding of the chocolate bar, and subsequently the storage of the finished product. The amount of lecithin on average is about 0.5% of the total mass of chocolate and does not affect its taste.

As a flavoring for bitter chocolate, vanilla is most often used. Ideally, it should be natural, but the manufacturer can use its analogues.

Sometimes recipes use cocoa powder, which is not prohibited by GOST, but nevertheless undesirable because the taste of chocolate becomes less saturated.

The shelf life of dark chocolate is from 12 to 18 months. By the way, it is necessary to store chocolate in a cool dark place, but not in the refrigerator, because chocolate absorbs all the smells of food stored in the refrigerator, and the taste and aroma of chocolate will spoil. The ideal storage place would be a kitchen cabinet.

All information on the composition, percentage of cocoa products and shelf life is indicated on the label, and having studied only this information, you can choose a good bitter chocolate, and after buying to evaluate its appearance, aroma and taste.

What should be bitter chocolate

The chocolate should be dark brown in color, solid in texture, uniform, homogeneous (without delamination), break with a clear crackling sound, without crumbling or crumbling, the break should be even and smooth. When cracking, a clear and sonorous crackling sound gets chocolate due to cocoa butter: at a temperature of 25 ° C it is hard and brittle, therefore it breaks easily. And at 32 ° C, cocoa butter becomes liquid, so it melts quickly enough in the mouth without sticking to the teeth and palate, and melts gradually in the hands.

The surface of the chocolate bar should be smooth, smooth and glossy. Chocolate gets such a beautiful shine, again, thanks to cocoa butter. That is why it is the most valuable and expensive ingredient of real chocolate: the butter gives the desired fluidity and plasticity to the chocolate mass when molding the tiles, makes the surface of the finished chocolate glossy, and the taste is pleasant and rich.

What should not be in the composition

In the composition of the dark chocolate should not be milk fat. It is added only in white and milk chocolate.

At the same time (according to GOST) it is allowed to use cocoa butter equivalents and (or) its improvers in the production of bitter chocolate up to 5% to the total weight of the chocolate mass, without changing the minimum amount of cocoa butter. Equivalents are vegetable fats that contain the same fatty acids as cocoa butter. That is, they have physicochemical properties similar to those of cocoa butter, so there is almost no change when mixing these oils. The equivalents themselves are not harmful, but at the same time, although their presence in the composition of chocolate is allowed by the standard, really high-quality bitter chocolate is still a product of processing cocoa beans, which include and should not contain other oils other than butter cocoa. Accordingly, the presence of equivalents in the composition of dark chocolate is undesirable, and if they are, their presence should be clearly indicated on the label.

Sugar and fat bloom

Sometimes chocolate is covered with an ugly white-gray bloom, which can cause doubts about the quality of the product. By and large, such a raid, although it is a violation of either production technology or the storage conditions of already finished products, does not spoil the taste of chocolate, but makes it extremely unattractive in appearance. In the confectionery industry such scurf is designated by the term "graying", which can be of two types: sugar and fat.

Increased humidity is always the cause of sugar bloom: when condensation occurs on the surface of the product, sugar, which is part of chocolate, begins to dissolve in this moisture, and after it evaporates, sugar crystallizes again, forming the same ugly white scum on the surface of chocolate. Causes of condensation may be different, including the rapid movement of finished products from a cold place to a warmer, but the most common is the storage of chocolate in places with high humidity. That is why the manufacturer always indicates on the label, at what relative humidity should be stored chocolate.

Fat blooming is a natural phenomenon, and absolutely any chocolate product can “turn gray”, but there are several factors that speed up the appearance of such a bloom. In the case of dark chocolate, such factors most often are either improper tempering of chocolate at one of the stages of its production, which is why cocoa butter does not crystallize as it should after hardening the finished chocolate; or non-compliance with the storage conditions of finished products, when the temperature is too high, because of which the appearance of fat graying is accelerated.

It is a good bitter chocolate, without additives and toppings, that best conveys the aroma, taste and beneficial properties of cocoa beans.

The best bitter chocolate — 2018 rated