Chocolate Is Healthy

Ever wonder how to properly taste chocolate?  With so many types of chocolate available, it’s hard to know what to look for, let alone what to taste for.  While there’s always a matter of personal preference in chocolate tasting, this excellent guide from Nibble is a great way to begin exploring chocolate the way professional food tasters do.

The Tasting Chocolate Guide is broken out into sections so you’ll learn to judge chocolate’s aroma, appearance and taste.  Chocolate tasting is a great activity to do with friends, where you gather a small group and each person brings a different dark chocolate bar or two.  You take turns evaluating the different types of chocolate.  Which one seems more waxy than the others?  What region’s chocolate did folks enjoy the most?

The Nibble Tasting Chocolate Guide also suggests the assortment of chocolates to have at a chocolate tasting and the best sequence to enjoy them.  Check it out here.

Taste Chocolate.

Like much of baking, working with chocolate is not without its mysteries.  Have you ever noticed that when you have refrigerated chocolate, it develops a white colored exterior?  What about when the flavor of chocolate changes once melted?

Temperature and humidity are key when storing chocolate and maintaining its freshness.   Keep your chocolate stored between 50 and 70 degrees F.  This consistency of temperature is essential.

Make sure packages of chocolate are tightly sealed so that neither air nor light can penetrate the chocolate.

If you’re melting chocolate, do so using a double boiler.  It’s a gentler way of heating than a typical stovetop pan or microwave.  This raises the temperature and changes chocolate’s texture more gradually to help avoid scorching and keep its smooth, glossy appearance.  It also helps it to maintain its natural flavors.