Why is white chocolate white?
Chocolate is made from components of the cocoa bean. The beans are fermented, dried and the outer skin removed leaving the ‘nib’. The nibs are roasted and ground up to form a ‘liquor’. This can then be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa solids. Chocolate gets its distinctive dark colour and flavour from the cocoa solids in the nib.
The only ingredient from the cocoa bean in ‘white chocolate’ is cocoa butter which is why it lacks the darkness of other types of chocolate. Cocoa butter is naturally pale-yellow which gives white chocolate its ivory colour.
Cocoa butter has a narrow melting temperature which contributes to the mouthfeel or ‘melting texture’ of chocolate.
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