Dark chocolate, the queen of sweets, has a long and interesting history. It was discovering new forms, beautifying and conquering all countries of Old and New World. The ancient Maya and Aztec civilizations were preparing chocolate with chili, vanilla, pepper and later on with other spices and additives. Today, this chocolate is synonymous with sophisticated and delicate aromas but also top quality chocolate.
Dark chocolate – unity of unmatched flavors
Dark chocolate main ingredients are:
– Cocoa mass,
– Cocoa butter,
– Sugar,
– Spices like natural vanilla and
– Soy lecithin as an emulsifier.
Perhaps the most important characteristic of the chocolate is that the basic ingredient of cocoa mass, obtained by processing cocoa beans, contains a natural mixture of cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Unlike тhе other types of chocolate, dark one does not contain any milk. The quality of these chocolates precisely depends on the quality of the cocoa, the blend of the cocoa beans and other additional ingredients.
Dark chocolates are categorized by the industry as unsweetened or extra black, bitter-sweet, semi-sweet and sweet. By European standards, chocolate is considered to be at least 35% of cocoa, which are usually in our market for cooking chocolate. Real chocolate is considered to be those with 40-60% cacao (semi-sweet), 65-80% (bitter-sweet) and 85-98% (extra black). There are major discrepancies in each of these categories in both, sugar and cocoa butter percentage. This is especially pronounced for semi-sweet and bitter-sweet chocolates. As for the aromatic complex of dark chocolates, depending on the types of cocoa, the following flavors can be found: in the chocolate: berries or tropical fruits notes, coffee, green tea, rum, caramel, hazelnut, flowers …
With this type of chocolate, there are numerous possibilities for experimenting, pairing different flavor combinations, adding different additives and spices. One important thing to do when combining this is that always the primary flavors of chocolate must be those derived from cocoa, while everyone else is there to give “something special”.
What are white and milk chocolates you can read in choco journal posts Whitechocolate and Milkchocolate.
You can read more about the history of chocolate in our posts Sweet chocolate history – part 2 and Sweet chocolate history – part 2
In Aguara chocolate assortment there are different dark chocolates with 60% and 70% of cocoa. They are dedicated to wines such as Prokupac, Probus, Vranac, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
