White Chocolate: Favorites, Sourcing, Using

[Vojta]

Thank you for the edit addig the example with 100% chocolate bar.

 

I think we can close it here.

 

But if you have time I feel like I dont get it...

 

I have two problems.

 

Fig 1: Printscreen from the webpage, photo of packaging top, composition bottom

 

What I know

harvest cacao pods → remove beans with pulp → fermentation → drying → remove shell from each bean = extract nib → grind nibs to paste called chocolate liquor → separate into two parts by pressing: cocoa solids and cocoa butter → cocoa solids are grinded into powder calle cocoa powder we bake with

Cocoa solids has to be brown and cocoa butter is yellow-ish.

 

Problems I see

1)

On the packaging there is '33,1 % min cocoa solids'. Which has to result in brown chocolate.

Solution: Callebaut has misleading information on labeling or cacao solids are not brown. Both is unlikely since Callebaut is huge company and I know a cocoa powder I bake with is brown.

 

2)

 @Kerry Beal said: cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa mass. I understand cocoa mass as cocoa solids.

Thus we have an equation: cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

In the Fig 1 they state '33,1 % min. cocoa' under that there is '34.6 % cocoa butter'. 

cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

33,1 % = 34,6 % + cocoa solids

In order this equation holds true:

33,1 % = 34,6 % - 1,5 %

Which is absolutely nonsense to have negative amount of an ingredient. And I have no idea whats wrong.

 

I am sorry it propably seems like a small thing but its my nature, I want to understand the world clearly.

 

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, Vojta said:

Everything says that white chocolate is "chocolate" type that contains zero cocoa, only cocoa butter.

 

"Everything" doesn't say that at all, as your link proves.

Edited July 19, 2019 by liuzhou (log)

[teonzo]

23 minutes ago, Vojta said:

Problems I see

1)

On the packaging there is '33,1 % min cocoa solids'. Which has to result in brown chocolate.

Solution: Callebaut has misleading information on labeling or cacao solids are not brown. Both is unlikely since Callebaut is huge company and I know a cocoa powder I bake with is brown.

 

There is no law giving an exact definition of what "cocoa solids" mean. The usual meaning is the one you wrote, but it's a common meaning not an exact law. So if someone uses the phrase "cocoa solids" for something different then it's not an absolute error. We need to remember that it's almost impossible to extract all cocoa butter from cocoa liquor, you need to apply a HUGE pressure. The vast majority of cocoa powder in commerce contains more than 10% cocoa butter. What you call "cocoa solids" is not 100% cocoa solids (using your definition that cocoa solids are composed by the cocoa liquor minus all the cocoa butter). Besides that, cocoa butter is solid at room temperature, so we could argue that it's a cocoa solid too, since there is no clear definition by law.

Is that Callebaut label "wrong" using the common meaning? Yes. Is it absolutely wrong? No.

Is all this pretty confusing? Yes, but this how things are at the current moment.

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, Vojta said:

In the Fig 1 they state '33,1 % min. cocoa' under that there is '34.6 % cocoa butter'. 

cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

33,1 % = 34,6 % + cocoa solids

In order this equation holds true:

33,1 % = 34,6 % - 1,5 %

Which is absolutely nonsense to have negative amount of an ingredient. And I have no idea whats wrong.

 

You are forgetting the "min.", which means "minimum" not "exact". If they say 33.1% min. and then use 66% then the label is correct, they declared a minimum of 33.1%, if the real content is above then there is no error.

Those labels are printed in HUGE numbers to save costs, then after packaging there is an ink jet printer that adds the final details of that chocolate (production lot, expiration date, so on). The basic info on that label (the one they receive from the company that produce those labels) is "% MIN. COCOA 33.1" (the one printed on the brown side). The added info (the one printed locally after packaging) is "% COCOA BUTTER 34.6". Why so? To save money from the label producer and to allow for small changes during production. If you order a huge amount of labels that state everything then you are forced to follow that same formulation no matter what. If you start with labels stating a minimum then you have room for small changes (like in this case): it's possible that they change milk solids supplier and the new milk solids have slightly different features, calling for a bit more cocoa butter. If they act like they did, then they have room for adjustments. If they buy labels stating everything exact in advance, then there is no room for change.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Kerry Beal]

4 hours ago, Vojta said:

Thank you for the edit addig the example with 100% chocolate bar.

 

I think we can close it here.

 

But if you have time I feel like I dont get it...

 

I have two problems.

 

Fig 1: Printscreen from the webpage, photo of packaging top, composition bottom

 

What I know

harvest cacao pods → remove beans with pulp → fermentation → drying → remove shell from each bean = extract nib → grind nibs to paste called chocolate liquor → separate into two parts by pressing: cocoa solids and cocoa butter → cocoa solids are grinded into powder calle cocoa powder we bake with

Cocoa solids has to be brown and cocoa butter is yellow-ish.

 

Problems I see

1)

On the packaging there is '33,1 % min cocoa solids'. Which has to result in brown chocolate.

Solution: Callebaut has misleading information on labeling or cacao solids are not brown. Both is unlikely since Callebaut is huge company and I know a cocoa powder I bake with is brown.

 

2)

 @Kerry Beal said: cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa mass. I understand cocoa mass as cocoa solids.

Thus we have an equation: cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

In the Fig 1 they state '33,1 % min. cocoa' under that there is '34.6 % cocoa butter'. 

cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

33,1 % = 34,6 % + cocoa solids

In order this equation holds true:

33,1 % = 34,6 % - 1,5 %

Which is absolutely nonsense to have negative amount of an ingredient. And I have no idea whats wrong.

 

I am sorry it propably seems like a small thing but its my nature, I want to understand the world clearly.

 

I believe I said cocoa component  = cocoa mass + cocoa butter.  So either or both make up the cocoa referred to on the packaging. So a bar of cocoa butter is 100% cocoa as is a bar of cocoa mass as is a ‘bar’ of cocoa powder.

 

 

[liuzhou]

10 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

In the Fig 1 they state '33,1 % min. cocoa' under that there is '34.6 % cocoa butter'. 

cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

33,1 % = 34,6 % + cocoa solids

In order this equation holds true:

33,1 % = 34,6 % - 1,5 %

Which is absolutely nonsense to have negative amount of an ingredient. And I have no idea whats wrong.

 

Surely they mean of the 33.1% cocoa, 34.6% is cocoa butter.

[Kerry Beal]

6 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

Surely they mean of the 33.1% cocoa, 34.6% is cocoa butter.

I don’t think I’ve paid too much attention to those labels with the diagonals, but looking at them now they indicate that the bar contains 49.9% fat  made up of 34.6% cocoa butter and 6.3% milk fat. Now why composition would only refer to the fat - who knows!

[Tri2Cook]

Is it possible for the cocoa butter and milk that the upper number is their minimum and the lower number is the target? The minimum being there to head off complaints if they don't hit the target perfectly and somebody notices (and we all know someone would notice) and the target being there so they can call it a "xx% white chocolate" in their advertising? The fat column is just a breakdown of the total fat which is really just an unnecessary repeat for white chocolate since all of the cocoa content will be fat and we could just add the cocoa butter and milk fat from the other two columns ourselves.

[tschaefges]

On 7/19/2019 at 7:34 AM, Vojta said:

@Kerry Beal said: cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa mass. I understand cocoa mass as cocoa solids.

Thus we have an equation: cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

In the Fig 1 they state '33,1 % min. cocoa' under that there is '34.6 % cocoa butter'. 

cocoa = cocoa butter + cocoa solids

33,1 % = 34,6 % + cocoa solids

In order this equation holds true:

33,1 % = 34,6 % - 1,5 %

Which is absolutely nonsense to have negative amount of an ingredient. And I have no idea whats wrong.

 

The European labeling law says that cocoa solids refers to the chocolates combined weight of cocoa butter and dry cocoa particles (i.e. cocoa powder) and the label must show the percentage of dry cocoa solids. So for that purpose cocoa solids is not synonymous with cocoa powder. For labeling in Europe the equation above should be

 

cocoa solids = cocoa butter + cocoa powder

 

I wonder if the 1.5% difference in the cocoa solids percentage and the cocoa butter percentage on the label is because the label must show dry cocoa solids and there's a tiny amount of water in cocoa butter..

Edited July 22, 2019 by tschaefges (log)

[teonzo]

16 minutes ago, tschaefges said:

I wonder if the 1.5% difference in the cocoa solids percentage and the cocoa butter percentage on the label is because the label must show dry cocoa solids and there's a tiny amount of water in cocoa butter..

 

33.1% is stated as a minimum, this means that the real content must be 33.1% or above. They state the real content as 34.6%, which is above 33.1%, so there is nothing wrong with that. It's like for marmalade / jam: you can state the minimum % of fruit (in all labels), then write the real content batch after batch.

 

Regarding "cocoa solids", it depends on each country: Italy is in the EU, yet we do not have any equivalent to "cocoa solids" in our labels / language. There's no clear consensus on that definition.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[paulraphael]

14 hours ago, tschaefges said:

 

The European labeling law says that cocoa solids refers to the chocolates combined weight of cocoa butter and dry cocoa particles (i.e. cocoa powder) and the label must show the percentage of dry cocoa solids. So for that purpose cocoa solids is not synonymous with cocoa powder.

 

This. It's not just European law; it's the convention in the industry. When you see a bar labelled 70% cocoa solids, that 70% includes the cocoa butter. The remaining 30% is sugar, or maybe also a tiny bit of lecithin and vanilla. 

 

A 70% cocoa solids chocolate typically breaks down to something like 33% cocoa, 37% cocoa butter, 30% sugar. A 100% bar might be 48% cocoa, 52% cocoa butter. You usually can only get the exact breakdown if it's couverture and the company anticipates selling to pastry chefs. 

 

I find that with cocoa powder, the higher quality ones often have more cocoa butter rather than less. I wish this weren't the case ... usually the reason I use cocoa powder is to avoid the cocoa butter. 

[SweetSymphonybyM]

My two favorite whites are Callebaut Velvet and Valrhona Waina.