White chocolate
White chocolate is chocolate made from cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids. It is ivory in color and lacks the dark appearance of most other types of chocolate because it does not contain the non-fat components of cocoa. Due to this omission, as well as its sweetness and the occasional use of additives, some consumers do not consider white chocolate to be real chocolate.
Of the three traditional types of chocolate, white chocolate is the least popular. Its taste and texture are divisive: admirers praise its texture as creamy, while detractors criticize its flavor as cloying and bland. White chocolate is sold in a variety of forms, including bars, chips and coatings for nuts. It is common for manufacturers to pair white chocolate with other flavors, such as matcha or berries. White chocolate has a shorter shelf life than milk and dark chocolate, and easily picks up odors from the environment.
White chocolate is made industrially in a five-step process. First, the ingredients are mixed to form a paste. Next, the paste is refined, reducing the particle size to a powder. It is then agitated for several hours, after which further processing standardizes its viscosity and taste. Finally, the chocolate is tempered by heating, cooling and then reheating, which improves the product's appearance, stability and snap.
White chocolate was first sold commercially in tablet form in 1936 by the Swiss company Nestlé, and was long considered a children's food in Europe. It was not until the 1980s that white chocolate became popular in the United States. During the 21st century, attitudes towards white chocolate changed: markets for "premium" white chocolate grew, it became acceptable for adults in the UK to eat it, and in the US it was legally defined for the first time. A variant, blond chocolate, was created by slowly cooking white chocolate over several days.
History
The origin of white chocolate is unclear. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was first used in a December 1917 issue of Scientific American magazine, in which it was described as a product made entirely of cocoa butter and sugar, eaten by the Swiss Army. The dictionary also mentions a rumor, printed in the International Confectioner magazine the previous December, of a white-colored chocolate being made in Switzerland. In 1936, the Swiss company Nestlé launched a tablet called Nestlé Galak. According to author Eagranie Yuh there is a "general consensus" that this constitutes the first commercial white chocolate product. One account of Galak's creation indicates that demand for milk powder had decreased in the years following World War I, creating a glut; making white chocolate was a way manufacturers could use up this excess. According to Nestlé, before 1936 they had been manufacturing a coating for a vitamin product in partnership with the pharmaceutical group Roche. They created white chocolate by accident when they added cocoa butter to the coating's formula.On its introduction in the UK, white chocolate was sold under the names "white chocolate", "white milk chocolate" and "milk chocolate block". Describing this new product as "chocolate" was immediately challenged as it lacked cocoa solids and in at least one county, companies agreed to avoid the word "chocolate". Production of Milkybar was suspended in the UK in 1940 due to ingredient shortages caused by World War II and did not resume until 1956. White chocolate in Europe was closely associated with children, as adults believed it was more appropriate than chocolates with caffeine and strong flavors. In 1961, Nestlé created "The Milkybar Kid" mascot, a blond boy sporting glasses and a cowboy outfit. Over the following decades, a series of adverts featuring the character has become among the longest-running on television.
In 1965, the chocolate maker produced the first white chocolate in Spain. Other large manufacturers in the country soon followed, one of them producing an almond-white chocolate sweet. During the following decades in Spain, the chocolate was predominantly sold via grocery stores; it was used sparingly by artisans to provide contrast with milk and dark chocolate products. By the 1980s, the global white chocolate market was largely confined to a niche premium market in Europe. The Belgians were considered specialists, most famous for large white chocolate pralines flavored with orange peel. By the end of the 20th century in Continental Europe, white chocolate was no longer primarily associated with children, as manufacturers had begun marketing it as a luxury good.
Upon its introduction to Japan in 1968 by, white chocolate was unpopular and restricted to Hokkaido. The situation remained unchanged until the 1970s, when Japanese National Railways launched the campaign. Young backpackers travelled to Hokkaido and tasted the new chocolate for the first time, spreading its popularity across Japan. That decade, Japanese chocolate companies invented a holiday called White Day. Celebrated one month after Valentine's Day, it involved men giving white chocolate to women who had given them dark chocolate a month prior. Around the late 1980s, Nestlé, then the world market leader in white chocolate, pushed to create a mass market for white chocolate in Japan.File:Norfolk_Pea_Tart_-_Benedicts.jpg|alt=A clamshell-shaped pastry base filled with green beans. A white flower made of white chocolate sits on top; covered with a spoonful of black beads of caviar. It is garnished with small leaves.|thumb|White chocolate is featured in savory dishes, as seen above in a pea tart topped with caviar and white chocolate.
At the turn of the 21st century, culinary approaches to white chocolate shifted. In Spain, the use of white chocolate increased as artistic chocolate molding became more popular, particularly in works depicting Christmas and Easter subjects. Chefs within the molecular gastronomy movement in the 2000s used white chocolate, creating white chocolate fizz and pairing it with caviar. In Paris, pastry chef Sadaharu Aoki paired white chocolate with matcha for the first time, using the sweetness of the chocolate to offset the bitterness of the matcha. Over the next few years, restaurants like The French Laundry and chocolate companies including Meiji and Nestlé released treats featuring the combination. In the UK, Cadbury estimated that white chocolate accounted for 1–2% of chocolate consumed. To expand the market, chocolate makers began marketing white chocolate to adults, particularly women: Cadbury released the Cadbury Snowflake and Dream, and Nestlé released white chocolate versions of Aero and Kit Kat. By 2017 in the UK, white chocolate was widely considered acceptable for adults to eat. In France, the chocolate is particularly favored by children.
Since 2012, the French chocolate manufacturer Valrhona has sold "blond chocolate", invented around 2005 after white chocolate was accidentally left in a bain-marie for several days, creating a chocolate with toasted, caramel flavors., Valrhona was lobbying the French government to recognize it as a separate type of chocolate.
In the United States
says that they introduced white chocolate to the United States for the first time in 1956. However, it did not become popular until the 1980s, after a white chocolate mousse served by chef Michel Fitoussi in New York City in 1977 started a white chocolate fad. Imports from Europe rose; the chocolate was marketed as European and considered trendy. Pastry chefs used the product's plasticity to build decorations for cakes. White chocolate versions of desserts like truffles, cheesecakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies were made, even as the mousse remained the most popular. In desserts, it was often paired with berries to balance the richness of the chocolate.White chocolate was made and mass-distributed in the United States for the first time in 1984, when Nestlé released Alpine White, a white chocolate bar containing almonds, which they promoted to the "female indulgence" market. Growth in white chocolate consumption was driven by the product's uniqueness and perceptions that it was "lighter and more delicate" than other types of chocolate, a desirable quality for customers who felt they needed a respite from the rich chocolate desserts that had been popular. Further growth came from the popularity of white chocolate macadamia cookies produced by Mrs. Fields. During this period, some consumers believed that because of its light color, white chocolate contained fewer calories and fats than darker chocolates.
By the 1990s, however, white chocolate had become unpopular and disliked, and Nestlé discontinued Alpine White in 1993. That decade, The Hershey Company introduced Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme, a white chocolate product embedded with cookie chunks, to the US market, and Nestlé's released a White Crunch bar; however, these failed to turn around sales. As of 2001, much of the "white chocolate" sold in the United States was made of palm kernel oils or hydrogenated fats and called "compound coating". It was sold as "ivory", "blanc", or just wrapped in clear plastic bags, and labels did not clearly distinguish between white chocolate made with and without cocoa butter. The popular disdain for white chocolate could be seen in hyperbolic opinions expressed in an online survey that April, wherein participants stated it "tasted like candle wax" and was "for communist spies."
In the early 1990s, Hershey and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association began lobbying the Food and Drug Administration to regulate a standard of identity for white chocolate. The FDA at the time forbade white chocolate being marketed as "chocolate" unless manufacturers held rare permits that had to be renewed every fifteen months. In deliberating what a standard of identity for white chocolate would be, the agency struggled to establish what percentage of cocoa was appropriate and whether to permit the addition of antioxidants. In 1997, the FDA released a proposal for a standard of identity, and in 2002, in response to a decade of lobbying, the administrative burden of the permit system and to make it easier to market US white chocolate internationally, the FDA regulated a standard of identity for white chocolate for the first time. This was enforced beginning in 2004 and required white chocolate to be made of at least 20% cocoa butter. As demand for cocoa butter caused prices to double between 2005 and 2015, some American producers switched to producing white chocolate for the premium chocolate market.