Is white chocolate actually chocolate?!
Is white chocolate actually chocolate?
Does white chocolate have chocolate in it?
Answers:
I always thought it was, but apparantly not!
Here's some info I found out for ya! Hope this helps!
White chocolate is made the same way as milk chocolate and dark chocolate -- the difference is the ingredients. In fact, because of the ingredients, many people (including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) don't consider "white chocolate" to be chocolate at all.
It all begins with the cacao tree, which grows in equatorial areas of South America, Africa, and Asia. The seeds of the tree's fruits are the cocoa beans, which are harvested, fermented for six or seven days, and then dried. The highest quality chocolate comes from cocoa beans that are dried naturally in the sun for a week -- shorter, artificial drying yields inferior chocolate. Next, the beans are roasted, and the shells are removed. Then the cocoa is ground, resulting in a thick liquid called chocolate liquor (it's not alcoholic). This liquor is used to make unsweetened chocolate.
For other chocolaty purposes, the liquor is pressed to extract the fat, which is called cocoa butter. With the fat removed, the liquor becomes a powder that is blended with the cocoa butter and other ingredients to make different kinds of chocolate. Plain chocolate is made of cocoa powder, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and sugar. Milk chocolate, of course, has milk added. White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, milk, and sugar.
After the ingredients are mixed, the product is further refined to create chocolate suitable for solid bars and pieces. It's mixed, heated, and cooled very precisely in methods called "conching" and "tempering." These processes can take up to a week for the finest chocolates.
Because white chocolate has no cocoa solids from the chocolate liquor, the FDA doesn't classify it as chocolate. However, the organization is working with chocolate manufacturers to establish a standard definition for white chocolate. Until a standard is published, check labels and beware of "white chocolate" that contains vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter. The quality and taste are inferior.