Narsai David: Chocolate Basics

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - There are a lot of things people take for granted when it comes to chocolate and the countless ways we've devised to enjoy this timeless desert delicacy.

Unsweetened chocolate, for example, is half cocoa butter and half cocoa powder since the natural cacao bean doesn't have quite enough cocoa butter on its own to produce a creamy, rich texture.

KCBS Food And Wine Editor Narsai David:

So, first the bean gets roasted, then ground and pressed through a really tough sieve that allows the fat through and leaves the cocoa powder behind. All that cocoa butter gets blended back into the original batch to create a chocolate cream with a texture that feels wonderful on the palate.

That cocoa powder that remains behind—the same powder by the way you would use to make a hot chocolate drink—is, for all intents and purposes, fat free. So if your hot chocolate uses non-fat milk, you have a virtually zero fat beverage.

Of course, the candy bar in one form or another is what chocolate is really all about for most of us. And there are three basic varieties of chocolate bar.

Semi-sweet chocolate is going to have a fair bit of added sugar added. Dark sweet, or bitter sweet, is going to have a little less sugar so that the bitterness of the cocoa bean comes through. And milk chocolate, of course, has milk product added on top of the sugar.

That said, the ingredient list of a proper chocolate bar is very simple: chocolate, with or without added cocoa butter, vanilla extract for flavoring, sugar and maybe some milk.

Narsai David is the KCBS Food and Wine Editor. He has been a successful restaurateur, chef, TV host, and columnist in the Bay Area spanning four decades. You can hear him Saturdays at 10:53am, 12:53pm and 4:53pm, and at 2:53am Sunday on KCBS All News 740AM and 106.9FM.

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