Chocolate need not be bad for you in moderation and if you choose well.
What is good chocolate? The scientifically-based Zoe study says: “Dark chocolate is particularly beneficial for your gut. It provides fuel and promotes the growth of some of the gut’s “good” bacteria. ..Dark chocolate has several times more antioxidants than green tea or red wine. And it contains substances that may help lower your blood pressure, improve your cholesterol levels and brain function, and help your body deal with insulin.”
Prof. Tim Spector of Zoe recommends opting for chocolate that is at least 70% cocoa. “If you go for very high cocoa content, then you’re less likely to get anything that’s unhealthy. Pick something with the minimum number of ingredients on the label, and then you know you’re going to get something that is really natural with very little taken away.” (Read our recipe for salted caramel chocolate mousse.)
Choosing good chocolate
Fine dark chocolate is so intense in flavour that one or two squares (eaten slowly) really is enough. Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of pioneering artisanal businesses producing exciting “bean-to-bar” chocolate. Willy Wonka might be the prototype for these new chocolatiers, such is their individualism and creativity. (Read
Around 90% of cocoa beans are bought purely on weight, as a commodity. The rest are grown, harvested and processed with greater care. Good chocolate makers talk about fine cocoa beans like artisanal roasters talk about coffee beans, treating each batch with care in order to bring out a wide range of flavours, from floral to fruity to toasty.
A number of the new chocolatiers – such as Original Beans, Amano, Askinosie, The Grenada Chocolate Company and Friis-Holm – combine the luxury of chocolate with social enterprise, buying directly from farmers for a good price, some even making the chocolate in the country of origin.
There are a number of trends to explore alongside single-origin dark chocolate bars, which specify the cocoa’s country and type of bean.
Pacari buys and makes its organic raw chocolate in Ecuador and has snatched the top prize at the International Chocolate Awards with its 70% Piura-Quemazon bar. You can truly taste the tropical fruity nature of cocoa beans in this bar.
But what about milk chocolate?
Then there are the new fine milk chocolate bars. Chocolate aficionados have long looked down on milk chocolate because it dilutes the flavour of the beans with dairy and sugar. But some makers now use a much higher cocoa content – 50% or more – so you get both the flavour of the beans and the lusciousness of the milk. It doesn’t always work but the good ones are delicious.
Duffy Sheardown of Red Star Chocolate, one of the few bean-to-bar artisans operating in the UK, won the Silver Award in the milk chocolate category of the International Chocolate Awards with his Venezuela Ocumare 55% Milk.
Sheardown worked as a racing-car engineer before setting up as a chocolate maker in Cleethorpes. His attention to detail and careful buying of beans has led to accolades and awards. Good-quality beans are the key difference between good and great chocolate, Sheardown says, and finding the way to bring out their flavours leads to a world of different tastes.
Sheardown says more people now consider fine chocolate worth the price. His best-selling chocolate bars are also his most expensive, perhaps because they are the award-winners but also because more chocolate-lovers appreciate the tastes.
For those at the sweeter end of the spectrum, there’s even posh white chocolate, made with more cocoa content than usual.
One spin on white chocolate is Valrhona’s Dulcey bar, launched in 2012 as the world’s first “blond” chocolate. Valrhona’s chief chef accidently left white chocolate cooking in a hot-water bath for nine hours and found that delicious, buttery, fudgy flavours developed. This bar replicates that taste, with 32% cocoa content.
The range of chocolate bars on sale is boggling. If you’re looking for the best chocolate, then The International Chocolate Awards is a good place to start. You could also become a chocolate taster extraordinaire by doing one of the International Chocolate Institute courses.
Read our recipe to make an easy chocolate cake.
This article was originally written in 2014 and has been updated.
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