Chocolate liquor

Chocolate liquor
Chocolate liquor wafers
Alternative namesCocoa liquor, cocoa paste, cocoa mass
TypeChocolate
Main ingredientsCocoa beans

Chocolate liquor, also called cocoa liquor, paste or mass, is pure cocoa in liquid or semi-solid form. It is produced from cocoa bean nibs that have been fermented, dried, roasted, and separated from their skins. The nibs are ground to the point cocoa butter is released from the cells of the bean and melted, which turns cocoa into a paste and then into a free-flowing liquid.

The liquor is either cooled and molded into blocks, which can be used as unsweetened baking chocolate, or put under high pressure, separating out cocoa butter and leaving behind a dry cake of defatted cocoa. Its main use (often with additional cocoa butter) is in making chocolate.

In this context, the word liquor is not in reference to alcohol, but means 'a liquid' or 'a fluid'.

American legislation treats chocolate liquor as a chocolate product. European legislation treats it as a cocoa product until sugar is added. Unlike European chocolate, American chocolate was commonly manufactured without sugar in the 19th century.

Chocolate liquor contains roughly 53% cocoa butter (fat), 17% carbohydrates, 11% protein, 6% tannins, and 1.5% theobromine.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Rarely cocoa solids

Sources

  1. ↑ "CFR – Code of Federal Regulations Title 21". Databases. United States: Food and Drug Administration. Archived from the original on September 15, 2003. Retrieved 22 April 2018.
  2. ↑ Afoakwa, Emmanuel Ohene (2016). Chocolate Science and Technology. Wiley. p. 111. Grinding of nib cells releases the cocoa butter into liquor with particle size up to 30 μm
  3. ↑ Stevens, Molly (January 2001). "Sorting Out Chocolate". Fine Cooking. No. 42. Taunton Press. pp. 74, 76. ISSN 1072-5121. Archived from the original on 2008-04-21. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  4. ↑ Terrio, Susan J (2000). Crafting the Culture and History of French Chocolate. University of California Press. p. 278. ISBN 0-520-22125-7.
  5. ↑ Food Chemistry. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 2013. p. 900. The resultant product is a homogeneous mobile paste, a flowing cocoa mass or cocoa liquor.
  6. ↑ "CFR – Code of Federal Regulations Title 21". Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved 22 January 2025. Nomenclature. The name of the food is "chocolate liquor", "chocolate", "unsweetened chocolate", "bitter chocolate", "baking chocolate", "cooking chocolate", "chocolate coating", or "unsweetened chocolate coating".
  7. ↑ "Directive 2000/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 June 2000 relating to cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption". EUR-Lex: Access to European Union law. Retrieved 22 January 2025. [Chocolate] designates the product obtained from cocoa products and sugars...
  8. ↑ "Sans sucre, le chocolat en perd son appellation". 20 minutes. 21 February 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2025. Les produits chocolatés dans lesquels les sucres sont totalement absents ne relèvent plus de la définition du chocolat. [Chocolate products in which sugars are completely absent no longer fall within the definition of chocolate.]
  9. ↑ Ferguson, A. M. (1892). Tropical Agriculturist and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society: Volume 12. Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka. p. 316. Most American manufacturers prepare a plain chocolate (known in Europe as cacao-masse), made by reducing the roasted and husked beans to a paste and pressing into the form of cakes.
  10. ↑ Wolke, Robert L. (2005). What Einstein Told His Cook 2, The Sequel: Further Adventures in Kitchen Science (Hardcover). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 433. ISBN 0-393-05869-7.