Chocolate, that delectable treat, has a mixed reputation. Some say to stay away, since it provides only fats and sugar, while others claim that its antioxidant properties and natural minerals make it the perfect treat, in small proportions, to satisfy the sweet tooth. Discovered more than 2,000 years ago, according to The Field Museum, chocolate now takes on many forms, including bittersweet and unsweetened.
Identification
All things chocolate begin as the cacao bean, the product of the Theobroma cacao, a small tropical tree native to Central America, South America and Africa. The bean, or seed, grows inside a pod that branches straight off of the tree trunk. Once harvested, the beans sit in a wooden bin to ferment, then workers dry them in the sun. The inner portion of the bean, called a chocolate nib, gets ground up into a bitter, liquid paste known as chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor naturally contains about 53 percent to 56 percent cocoa butter, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Unsweetened Chocolate
Unsweetened chocolate, as the name suggests, contains no added sugar and tastes more bitter than than bittersweet chocolate. Unsweetened chocolate is the product produced when the chocolate liquor cools and hardens. Although too bitter to eat, bakers use unsweetened chocolate to produce chocolaty concoctions. Some refer to unsweetened chocolate as baking chocolate, pure chocolate or bitter chocolate.
Bittersweet Chocolate
Bittersweet chocolate contains a minimum of 35 percent chocolate liquor, giving it a bitter taste to balance the sweetness of added sugar. Those speaking of chocolate often use the terms bittersweet and semisweet interchangeably, but chocolatiers often use bittersweet to describe chocolate containing at least 50 percent chocolate liquor, according to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter contains no butter, as the name would suggest, so cannot be classified as a dairy product. Instead, cocoa butter describes the fat of the cocoa bean. When producing different types of chocolates, manufacturers add cocoa butter to ensure a smooth texture. Bittersweet chocolate produced for consumption contains added cocoa butter, but unsweetened chocolate does not.
Texture
Because unsweetened chocolate contains no added cocoa butter, the texture remains dry and crumbly, even in bar form. The added cocoa butter in bittersweet chocolate gives it a more smooth and creamy texture.
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