Compound chocolate
Compound chocolate is a product made from a combination of cocoa, vegetable fat and sweeteners. It is used as a lower-cost alternative to pure chocolate, as it uses less-expensive hard vegetable fats such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil in place of the more expensive cocoa butter. It may also be known as "compound coating" or "chocolaty coating" when used as a coating for candy.
It is often used in less expensive chocolate bars to replace enrobed chocolate on a product. True chocolate containing cocoa butter must be tempered to maintain gloss of a coating. Compound coatings, however, do not need to be tempered. Instead, they are simply warmed to between 3 and 5 °C (5 and 9 °F) above the coating's melting point.
In the European Union a product can only be sold as chocolate if it contains a maximum of 5% vegetable oil.
See also
- Polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR) an emulsifier made from castor beans commonly used in compound chocolate
- Types of chocolate
References
Further reading
- Dale, Stuart (2017). "Chocolate compounds and coatings". In Beckett, Stephen T; Fowler, Mark S; Ziegler, Gregory R (eds.). Beckett's Industrial Chocolate Manufacture and Use (5th ed.). West Sussex, UK: Wiley. ISBN 9781118780145.