Chocolate facts

July 2, 9:40 AMRaleigh Cooking ExaminerDeanna Polito-Laughinghouse

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What a wonderful ingredient: chocolate! I have some useful tips and information you may not have known about this sweet treat.

Types of chocolate: Dark, Milk, Semi-Sweet and White.

Store chocolate in a dry and dark place.

Store chocolate wrapped and / or well sealed.

Moisture will change the appearance of chocolate.

If stored in the refrigerator, it may “bloom”, which means it may develop a dull film over it. (If this occurs, you can still use it.)

If melting chocolate, melt in a double broiler to prevent burning.

When melting, be sure that no water gets into the mixture. It will cause chocolate to clump up instead of melting smooth and shiny.

When melting chocolate, keep pieces small, it will melt faster and evenly.

You can melt chocolate in the microwave. Set it on medium-high and stir every 30 seconds. When it starts to look shiny, remove from oven and stir until remaining chocolate is melted.

Dark chocolate contains less calories than milk chocolate.

Dark chocolate contains magnesium.

Chocolate comes from cacao beans.

Cacao tress are native to South America.

Cacao beans have a high level of antioxidants. (Antioxidants suppress free radicals that can damage healthy cells in the body.)

Dark chocolate has the highest level of cacao and that makes it the healthiest of the chocolates.

Chocolate does contain caffeine. To equal the caffeine in a cup of coffee you have to eat more than 12 chocolate bars!

White chocolate has no caffeine.

White chocolate is made from cocoa butter…fat from cocoa beans.

Photo taken from yahoo.com.

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