Is White Chocolate Chocolate?

This question comes up a lot and there are a lot of mixed answers online. In my humble opinion however YES, white chocolate is indeed chocolate. And let me tell you why…..

During the process of making chocolate, the cocoa pod goes through lots of stages (you can see these in more detail on my previous post). After the beans have been roasted and winnowed (this removes the shells leaving behind the cocoa nibs), they move onto the griding and conching. It is here that the beans are transformed into cocoa liqor. The liqor is about 50/50 cocoa mass and cocoa butter. Sometimes it is used as it is but sometimes the cocoa butter gets seperated out.

One of white chocolates main ingredients is cocoa butter……

Just because it does not contain the cocoa mass does not mean that is made up of completely random ingredients, in my opinion white chocolate is indeed chocolate as its ingredients still come from the cocoa bean. The process to make white chocolate is indeed a lot simpler than the milks and darks and you do not need to go through the process with the beans, you could in fact just buy the cocoa butter and jump straight in at the end stages of the process.

Perhaps this why some people feel it is a cheats chocolate.

Anyway, white chocolate is chocolate, just a different variety. :) We have a very exciting white chocolate collection launchin in a few weeks which will showcase it in all its glory. Lots of the flaovurs we pair with the delicate white choc simply wouldnt shine with a dark chocolate or sometimes even a milk chocolate so us chocolatiers are definitely glad of its creation.