If you indulged in chocolate over the holidays like most of us do, we needn’t remind you just how delicious a treat the cocoa bean-turned-candy is. There’s no doubt most of us appreciate the taste of chocolate – but what about appreciating how it gets from its raw form to the truffles, bars, and treats we so enjoy? We’re here to give you a little background on the bean’s journey as it is made into the candy we’re so keen on.
The cocoa bean grows in many tropical countries and regions – Brazil, Ghana, Colombia, and the like. Though of a similar climate, each of these areas have unique local environments that cause variations in the chemical make-up of the bean, in particular, its triglyceride composition. This makes the process of reliably manufacturing the cocoa bean into our beloved chocolate a challenge. Containing several different triglycerides, cocoa butter’s relative amount of each fat depends on what kind of environment the bean was grown in.
Complexity aside, what else makes it so hard to resist chocolate? The way it miraculously melts in the mouth, not in the hand. The aforementioned mixture and inconsistency of triglycerides can alter the temperature at which chocolate melts. When chocolate has the perfect composition of cocoa butter balanced with optimal processing settings, it is able to do just that: melt in the mouth – which is only a slightly higher temperature than your skin – rather than in your hand and on your fingers.
There’s no denying Wockenfuss candies are melt-in-your-mouth good: we’ve been perfecting our homemade candies in Maryland since 1915. Try our artisanal chocolates at one of our Maryland candy shops today!
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Have a break … the secrets of chocolate