Baking chocolate facts for kids
Baking chocolate, also known as cooking chocolate or unsweetened chocolate, is a type of dark chocolate. It is made especially to be used as an ingredient in baking. You can use it to make delicious treats like cookies, cakes, and brownies. It's different from the chocolate bars you might just eat as a snack!
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How Baking Chocolate is Made
Modern baking chocolate is usually made from something called chocolate liquor. This isn't alcohol; it's actually ground-up cocoa beans! This chocolate liquor is then shaped into bars or small pieces called chocolate chips.
Sometimes, baking chocolate might have other fats mixed in instead of just cocoa butter. This can make it easier to work with when you are baking. It also means you don't have to do a special step called "tempering" which makes chocolate shiny and smooth. However, baking chocolate with less cocoa butter might not taste as rich or have the same smooth feel as higher-quality chocolate.
Different Kinds of Baking Chocolate
Baking chocolate comes in different types, depending on how much added sugar it has. This lets you choose the perfect chocolate for your recipe!
Unsweetened Baking Chocolate
This type of baking chocolate has no sugar added at all. It is almost 100% pure chocolate liquor or cocoa solids. Recipes that use unsweetened baking chocolate usually add a lot of sugar to make the final treat taste good.
Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
Bittersweet chocolate usually has less sugar and more pure chocolate compared to semisweet types. It must contain at least 35% chocolate liquor. Most baking chocolates have at least 50% cocoa, with the rest usually being sugar.
Semisweet Baking Chocolate
Semisweet chocolate has more sugar than bittersweet types. In Europe, there are rules that say semisweet chocolate must have more sugar and less pure chocolate than bittersweet. However, in the United States, there are no such rules. This means that in the U.S., bittersweet and semisweet chocolates can sometimes have similar amounts of sugar, and sometimes bittersweet can even be sweeter!
Sweet Baking Chocolate
Sweet baking chocolate has the most sugar of all the baking chocolate types. It is often called "sweet chocolate." Both sweet and semisweet baking chocolates are made with 15% to 35% chocolate liquor.
Who Makes Baking Chocolate?
Many companies make baking chocolate. Some well-known manufacturers include Baker's Chocolate, Callebaut, Ghirardelli, Guittard, The Hershey Company, Lindt, Menier, and Valrhona.
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