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Hot White Chocolate From The Ancient Cacao Bean

There are almost endless possibilities when it comes to choosing and buying chocolate. There are as many assortments on the market as many people's tastes for this treat. The term includes a number of foods that are produced from the seed of the tropical cacao tree, native to lowland tropical South America. People used to drink liquid chocolate beverages as back as 3000 years ago by the native Mayans and Aztecs. It's also associated with the Mayan god of fertility. A lot of the hot white chocolate consumed today is made into bars that combine cocoa solids, fats like cocoa butter, and sugar.

White chocolate is a special type. The assortment comes from the same cacao plant, but it turns that color because of a different production process. It was first made in New Hampshire after World War I and of course, hot white chocolate first appeared back then but only with isolated requests. It isn't as popular as generic hot chocolate is, but it has way more demand than it had in those days.

Chocolate is made from useable items extracted from the ancient cacao bean. While dark chocolates use the cocoa powder ground from the seeds, the versions of white use only the butter. Actually, this is the reason for which the hot white chocolate has that very light color and it contains neither liquor nor cocoa solids. Because of this fact, the lack of syrup from its creation process, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not even consider it to belong to the same family.

To create this delicious treat, producers use cocoa butter, milk solids, vanilla, sugar and lecithin; these being its main ingredients of course, for hot white chocolate, all of these are powdered (or should be). If real, natural cocoa butter is used, the result is a better tasting, higher quality product. Other producers will not use natural cocoa butter, but vegetable fats (these products are known as confectioner's coating or summer coating). Doing so, they end up with a lower quality product. If you read on the bar that vegetable fat has been used, you would better buy another assortment, made using real cocoa butter. It will simply taste better.

When they are made with natural cocoa butter, white chocolates have an ivory color. They are a tasty combination of cream and vanilla and no producer making it using vegetable fat will ever manage to match it in taste. You can also distinguish white chocolate made using cocoa butter from that made using vegetable fats by their consistency, taste and ability to be stored for many months before it expires. You can find out more at http://www.gourmetdarkchocolatetruffles.com

White chocolate is very delicate by nature. It melts quite easily and it will scorch even easier so it can be difficult to work with. When melted, the cocoa butter can split and create an oily compound that can be recovered by re-emulsifying.

If you want to melt white chocolate in your kitchen for making other treats (such as ganache or chocolate fondue), take care and slow the entire process down to be sure you do not ruin it. It is ideal for use in decoration of milk or dark chocolate confections.

Learn more about types of chocolate including Chocolate Truffles, easy to use recipes and chocolates for special occasions at => http://www.gourmetdarkchocolatetruffles.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dean_Forster

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