Is White Chocolate really Chocolate?

In a world that fantasizes about dark and milk chocolates, being a bar of white chocolate is truly a difficult feat in itself. The percentage of cocoa solids is what marks the credibility of a bar of chocolate. This officially puts white chocolate in question.

White chocolate is comparatively much younger than its darker versions. Nestle was the first company to commercially manufacture white chocolate, in an attempt to use up the excess milk powder produced during World war I. To make it look whiter, some manufacturers tend to bleach the otherwise pale yellow coloured cocoa butter or use fillers like vegetable shortening which adds to its unpopularity.

Although a chocolate lover may still be impressed with the milky, white goodness of white chocolate that has a silky smooth taste, a chocolate connoisseur might not approve. The latter might never consider it a true chocolate, as it lacks the key ingredient, cocoa.

So what really goes into making white chocolate? Well, it contains cocoa butter, a derivative from the cocoa bean, in addition to sugar and milk solids. The U.S FDA has set the standards for white chocolate to have a minimum quantity of cocoa butter to be 20%, milk solids to be 14%, and milk fat to be 3.5% while limiting the sweetener to fall under 55%. Though quite tricky for white chocolate to be technically categorised under the chocolate taxonomy, the final verdict lies in the soul of the one who relishes it!