remained solid even in warm weather. This chocolate was something like today's sweet baking

chocolate. Before his process chocolate was like butter—it became soft and eventually melted in

warm weather.

In 1875, a Swiss, Daniel Peter, discovered that adding condensed milk to this hard chocolate

produced a much more pleasant, velvet-smooth, delightfully delicious product that we now know as

milk chocolate.

Another Swiss, Rodolphe Lindt introduced a still further refinement. He discovered that

forcing the liquid chocolate repeatedly between rollers for several days (called conching) heated the

mass, evaporating moisture and volatile acids. He then cooled this slowly, a process all serious

bakers using chocolate still employ, called tempering. The result was a mellow-flavored, smooth-

textured chocolate product, even smoother and more pleasurable than milk chocolate. The

manufacturing process was also simpler. Before the discovery of conching, the processor pressed

the chocolate into molds. But conching allows chocolate manufacturers to pour chocolate directly

into molds.

Chocolate candy bar

Chocolate makers first test marketed chocolate bars, as we know them today, around

1910—consumers accepted them immediately, unconditionally and with enthusiasm. The Hershey

Company offered the U.S. armed forces an improved, new high-energy, heat-resistant, nutritious

chocolate concoction in 1937, which they called the Logan Bar. They produced 90,000 of these bars

for field testing. The military didn't like the name so they renamed them, giving a more soldierly

name Field Ration D Bars, and, in spite of unpalatable name, the chocolate bars were a hit with the

soldiers.

During World War II, the American military issued its troops generous chocolate bar rations

as a source of concentrated quick energy and eating pleasure. One of the most pleasantly

remembered times for Eastern and Central Europeans was the arrival of the liberating American

tanks filled with smiling GI's and sacksful of chocolate bars. The GI's passed out chocolates to the

weary and hungry crowds lining the streets. The liberating British and Russians brought freedom

from war, too, but, alas, no chocolate bars.

Varieties of chocolate

Cocoa and chocolate, the two items I’ve talked about so far, are the cocoa bean products

everyone is familiar with, cooks and non-cooks alike. But there are some variations in these two

products that we also need to be familiar with.

Chocolate comes as unsweetened, bittersweet, semisweet and sweet, with increasing

amounts of sugar as the only variable. It doesn't matter which one you use in your kitchen. For a

matter of convenience, it is best to stock just one kind, become familiar with it and stick with it.

Once you have a conversion table handy, you can quickly change the recipe from one kind of

chocolate to another. Many basic cookbooks, like The Joy of Cooking, have this conversion table.

My preference is to stock only unsweetened baking chocolate—that has the most chocolate in it,

and by adding the right amount of sugar, I can create any other chocolate variation I need.

TASTINGS Fat content of chocolate products

Serious Kitchen Play