Welcome to Chocolate-Recipes.co.uk

Chocolate…where would chocolate lovers be without it?

On this site you will be able to read some fascinating facts about where chocolate originally came from, how it is made, and, most importantly, you will be presented with a bewildering range of mouth watering chocolate recipes.

Where Chocolate Comes From

Chocolate is produced from the cacao bean (sometimes called the cocoa bean). The bean grows in pod-like fruits on the cacao tree, found in several tropical countries around the world. Most of the chocolate we eat comes from Africa, which produces about 70% of the world’s cacao beans.

Top Producers

• Côte d’Ivoire on the West coast of Africa
• Ghana – a neighbour of Côte d’Ivoire on Africa’s west coast

Other lesser producers include Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, Togo, Mexico and Papua New Guinea.

How Chocolate Is Made

The raw material for the chocolate we all love, the cacoa beans, have to be first of all fermented to lose the intense bitter taste that they have and to develop the flavour. Following this the beans are then dried, cleaned, and roasted.

The shell of the bean is removed and what remains are called cacao nibs. These nibs are ground to form cocoa mass, which is pure chocolate in rough form. This cocoa mass is liquefied and is therefore usually called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be further refined into two forms, cocoa solids and cocoa butter. What we buy as baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) consists of cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying
proportions.

Most of the chocolate that we eat as chocolate bars or sweets is in the form of sweet chocolate, which combines the cocoa solids and cocoa butter sugar. Milk chocolate is a sweet chocolate that has also had milk powder or condensed milk added to it. White chocolate comprises cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but contains no cocoa solids.

Is Chocolate Good For You?

Luckily for chocaholics, researchers have found that chocolate has some ingredients that are good for you. Thus we can have some good excuses for over indulging!

Seriously, cocoa solids contain alkaloids such as theobromine and phenethylamine, which have been found to have some beneficial physiological effects on the body. For example, it has been linked to increased serotonin levels in the brain. Some research found that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood pressure.

Chocolate in its various forms has become one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world. Gifts of chocolate molded into different shapes have become traditional on certain holidays. Who can possibly resist the chocolate eggs we get at Easter? And what about those chocolate Santa Claus’s and boxes of chocolates at Christmas?

More Good News

And of course chocolate is also used to produce delicious chocolate milk and hot chocolate.

We hope your taste buds have been stimulated and you are ready to try one of the delicious recipes that you will find on this site. Feel free to download any of them and let us know how you get on.