The Secret of meltiness of chocolate.
Hello my fellow chocolate lovers,
I am Takanori Chiwata, the chocolate engineer of COCONAMA CHOCOLATE.
Let me go a little deeper with our last topic “cocoa butter” in this post.
In our last post, I mentioned how cocoa butter consists of Palmitic, Oleic, and Stearic acids. It is actually these three fatty acids that give chocolate its unique meltiness. Now let’s reveal its secret!
Image below shows the compound of a natural fat.
Natural fats are also known as Triglycerides, which is ester derived from three fatty acids and Glycerol.
Cocoa butter is quite unique when it comes to its compounds. 80% of cocoa butter is made of Triglycerides of these three compounds: palmitic acid-oleic acid-stearic acid, palmitic acid-oleic acid- palmitic acid, and stearic acid-oleic acid-stearic acid.
Oleic acid is naturally very soft, or to put it bluntly, it doesn’t solidify (good example here would be olive oil).
Palmitic acid is relatively soluble with low molecular mass, and Stearic acid is insoluble with a heavier molecular mass.
The unique and immediate meltiness of cocoa butter is created by these three fatty acids in a superb ratio.
On top of that, the purity of 80% Triglycerides is also the secret to its texture.
Thanks to this high purity, the sharp curve on the image below (which illustrates how fast the solid fat melts when it hits a certain temperature ) can be present. Foods like butter, which is made from milk fat consisting of several other compounds shows a moderate curve. This is the very reason why you are left with that unpleasant oiliness in your mouth when you eat butter instead of a heavenly meltiness like chocolate.
I think I’m the only weird who thinks about the connection between the chemical structure and the melt-in-your-mouth texture of a chocolate whenever I savour it...BUT I just can’t help appreciating the miracle. AND I mean every single time.
Let’s call it a day now.
With hopes that you will be able to encounter the perfect chocolate just for you,
Takanori Chiwata
