This question could easily make it into the top 3 most divisive questions. Should you say "chocolatine" or "pain au chocolat"? Is Mont Saint-Michel Norman or Breton? Is white chocolate real chocolate?
All these thorny questions remain unanswered to this day. It is for this reason, and because we don't want you to rack your brains, that we have decided to unravel this great mystery: why is white chocolate not "real" chocolate? Yes, because as you might have guessed, it's not exactly chocolate.
What is chocolate, ultimately?
We often say that the simplest things are the best. Chocolate is no exception to this rule. To make good dark chocolate, it's very simple. You need: cocoa mass obtained by roasting, crushing, and grinding the beans, cocoa butter also obtained from the beans, sugar, and... that's it, no more is needed! Even if adding a lot of love is always essential.
For milk chocolate, it's the same recipe, with the addition of – guess what – milk powder!
For these two types of chocolate, it's the cocoa nibs (roasted and crushed cocoa bean fragments) that give chocolate its bitter, chocolatey taste. Thanks to the nibs, chocolate gets its characteristic taste that cannot be found anywhere else. For white chocolate, the process is quite different.
Why isn't white chocolate really chocolate?
Unlike its milk and dark counterparts, it has a specificity that immediately excludes it from the debate: no cocoa nibs in sight. So what is white chocolate then? Cocoa butter, milk, and sugar. Without nibs, white chocolate has a very different and less chocolatey taste. But it is the cocoa butter that allows it to achieve a texture and shape similar to milk or dark chocolate.
But if it's so obvious, why can white chocolate be called "chocolate"? Well, simply because it was first commercialized in Switzerland, by a chocolate brand. Indeed, it was born in Switzerland in 1930, when a chocolate brand wanted to sell off its surplus cocoa butter. The brand developed a recipe allowing it to make chocolate without cocoa nibs. Contrary to popular belief, white chocolate contains little cholesterol, but more sugar (up to 55%) than dark or milk chocolate.
Why don't we produce white chocolate?
If at Le Chocolat des Français we don't produce recipes with white chocolate, it's simply because it's not chocolate, strictly speaking. Indeed, although it has an interesting and different taste, it is not yet considered chocolate by many chocolatiers. Perhaps that will change one day?
In any case for us, whether the chocolate is dark, white, milk, caramel or Guérande salt, the important thing is to savor it and enjoy it by offering it or tasting it! Don't you agree?
