It’s National White Chocolate Day! Though I’ve mentioned many times that I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate, I do accept that it has its good points – where would tuxedo strawberries be without it? It also contains no theobromine, so it’s acceptable to eat by those with medical or religious restrictions.
White chocolate actually didn’t hit the candy scene until the 1950’s when it was introduced to the US by Mars, who originally saw it made in Europe in 1954. It was then popularized by Nestlé in their Alpine White Chocolate bar, which contained white chocolate and chopped almonds. …read more

When you eat chocolate, you expect it to really be chocolate, right? Maybe not. The US Food and Drug Administration is considering altering what they consider to be chocolate. They administer a standard that specifies what ingredients need to be present in all chocolate produced in the US. Their proposed changes include allowing vegetable fat substitutes in place of cocoa butter and milk substitutes in place of actual milk.
What does this mean to the producer? It means their products can be made much more cheaply and still be called chocolate. What does this mean to you, the consumer? It means …read more

Outside, as I write this, we are getting our first snowfall of the winter. Not much, but enough to leave a light dusting of white everywhere. Which makes me think of white chocolate. While not my favourite form of chocolate, I do eat some. But what is white chocolate, really? Does it come from an albino chocolate bean?
Turns out white chocolate isn’t really true chocolate at all. It contains no chocolate liquor, and therefore little chocolate flavour. The chocolate flavour it does have comes from cocoa butter. Usually white chocolate is made by combining cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, lecithin, …read more