Good chocolate is fresh chocolate. According to GOST, chocolate bar without additives is stored for a year and a half. With fruits, nuts, cream and milk soufflé, it is much less - up to two months, since these are perishable products. Study the composition. And estimate the shelf life declared by the manufacturer. The "long-lived" chocolate probably contains vegetable fats (palm or coconut oil) to keep the sweetness longer. Not the best option.
How to determine the quality of chocolate
Good chocolate is wrapped in foil or flow pack - a film that protects it from damage and sunlight. Packaging - paper or cardboard. To distinguish a real one, do three things.
Examine the tiles
Quality chocolate has a glossy, shiny surface. If you break it, it clicks. This suggests that it contains cocoa butter and grated cocoa. The face at the fault must be uniform.
Tile drips are good. This means that the product is made using the correct technology. It is low in soy lecithin, which is added to the composition to prepare a homogeneous chocolate mass. Lecithin is not harmful. It is a beneficial ingredient in the body's defense against cancer. But it does not add quality to true chocolate, since an ideal gourmet contains only three components - cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar.
They say that a gray coating on chocolate means soy. This is not true. It was stored in the wrong conditions: in the summer, when it is hot, the thawed tiles are cooled and put on display cases. The result is obvious. Cocoa butter comes in and the chocolate is flaked. Yes, it is capricious and demanding, so it must be stored at a temperature of 15-18 ° C. Plaque does not affect the taste.
Hold the gourmet in your palm
Real chocolate melts in your hands. But gradually. If it softens quickly, this is not a very good sign - it means that the product is not of the best quality. It won't melt at all - it's bad. It contains many stabilizers and thickeners that change the structure of the product.
Check if the plate is drowning in milk.
Place it gently in the milk:
- drowned - the chocolate is good, dense;
- floats on the surface - instead of cocoa powder in cocoa vell. It's dust. It is harvested from cocoa beans. It smells like cocoa, but it is actually cocoa trash. No nutrients needed.
Taste chocolate
Take a bite and crush it with your teeth, but do not chew, let it melt. Rub it across the sky and you will understand: dark chocolate, which seemed bitter, is not actually bitter. He's salty. When chewed quickly, bitter tannin is released. Better to let it melt, so you will feel the full taste of the gourmet.
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Types of chocolate: how to choose the healthiest one
The brands of chocolate are classified into three groups.
- Bitter has from 60% cocoa. The taste is bitter with a barely perceptible salty aftertaste. It is the most dietary variety, low in sugar, low fat dairy and no sugary ingredients. Such chocolate is eaten with diabetes.
- Dessert (semi-bitter) contains 35-60% cocoa. It tastes softer and more delicate, and bold fillings and additives tempt even gourmets. This differs from bitter.
- Milk has 35% cocoa butter and up to 20% milk powder. And milk, as you know, enriches us with proteins and minerals - calcium and zinc.
The fewer ingredients in a treat, the better. There are four of them in black. Composition of natural chocolate - cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, sugar, lecithin. The range expands due to the ingredients. According to GOST DSTU 3924-2000, chocolate is allowed: dry cream, nuts, natural coffee, butter, salt, berry and fruit puree, phosphatide concentrates, lecithins, solid vegetable fats.
Dessert is the most fragrant.It tastes better than usual due to the fine dispersion of cocoa powder. The porous tiles are saturated with carbon dioxide, which forms the bubbles loved by everyone. Manufacturers have their own ways.
- Some foams the chocolate mass in a low-speed turbine. An overpressure of gas is created in it, where the chocolate mixture is saturated with carbon dioxide and nitrogen, which leave voids behind.
- Others put the mass into a vacuum boiler. But first, fill the molds with three-quarters sweetness. In an airless space, air bubbles in the tile expand and form voids.
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White chocolate: composition
There is no cocoa powder in white chocolate. Therefore, it is creamy. And its taste is specific: sugary-sweet with a caramel shade.
According to GOST in white chocolate:
- up to 20% cocoa butter,
- milk powder not less than 14%,
- milk fat - about 3.5-4%,
- 55% sugar or other sweeteners.
There should be no other. But many manufacturers replace expensive cocoa butter with vegetable fats, so when choosing white chocolate, study the composition.
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