Chocolate liquor, also called cocoa liquor, paste or mass, is pure cocoa in liquid or semi-solid form. It is produced from cocoa bean nibs that have been fermented, dried, roasted, and separated from their skins. The nibs are ground to the point cocoa butter is released from the cells of the bean and melted, which turns cocoa into a paste and then into a free-flowing liquid.
The liquor is either separated into (non-fat) cocoa solids and cocoa butter, or cooled and molded into blocks, which can be used as unsweetened baking chocolate. Like the nibs from which it is produced, it contains both cocoa solids and cocoa butter in roughly equal proportion. Its main use (often with additional cocoa butter) is in making chocolate.
The name liquor is used not in the sense of a distilled, alcoholic substance, but rather the older meaning of the word, meaning 'liquid' or 'fluid'. The terms paste and mass are also commonly used. According to American legislation, chocolate liquor is classified as a chocolate product. According to European legislation, it strictly remains a cocoa product until sugar is added.
Chocolate liquor contains roughly 53 percent cocoa butter (fat), about 17 percent carbohydrates, 11 percent protein, 6 percent tannins, and 1.5 percent theobromine.
See also
- Types of chocolate
- Chocolate § Grinding and blending
References
