What is cocoa powder?

Cocoa was introduced to Europe by Spanish conquerors in the 16th century and quickly became popular as a health-promoting medicine.

Cocoa powder is made from cocoa beans, which come from the plant Theobroma cacao L. The beans are harvested, fermented, and dried. These must be roasted and ground into a fine powder. Cocoa powder is an unsweetened chocolate product, adds deep chocolate flavor to desserts and beverages.

Cocoa powder occurs when the fat, called cocoa butter, gets removed from the cacao beans during processing. The leftover dried solids get ground into the product sold as cocoa powder.

There are two types of cocoa powder: Natural cocoa powder and Dutch-process cocoa powder. Generally light brown in color, natural cocoa is acidic (with a pH around 5) and tends to be fruitier and more intensely flavored than Dutch-process cocoa. Dutch-processed cocoa has been treated with an alkaline solution to neutralize the cocoa’s acidity, which bumps up the pH to between 6.8 to 8.1. This results in mellowing out any sharp notes in flavor and a darker color.

Cocoa powder adds intense flavor to chocoholic recipes such as fudge or flourless chocolate cake, but it can also be used as a subtle coating on chocolate truffles or a light chocolate booster for quick breads and muffins.

Cocoa powder is rich in polyphenols have been linked to numerous health benefits, including reduced inflammation, better blood flow, lower blood pressure and improved cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Research suggests that adding more cocoa powder to human diet helps to improve his attention, working memory, and general cognition. It may also restore cognitive performance in people with sleep loss.
What is cocoa powder?

Extracting chocolate liquor from cocoa beans

The foundation of all forms of chocolate is chocolate liquor, made from the nibs or meat of cocoa beans.

Chocolate liquor is a suspension particles in cocoa butter that produced by milling cocoa beans that have undergone dehulling. At the beginning of the process, the beans are first passed over magnets and vibrating screens to remove any unwanted debris. The beans then are roasted, their outer shells removed and the nibs ground up until friction reduces them to a liquid.

The grinding process generates heat which melts the fats, causing them to become liquid. This chocolate liquor is fifty percent fat, or cocoa butter.

Chocolate liquor is a key component of chocolate that is also known as cocoa liquor, chocolate mass and cocoa mass.
Extracting chocolate liquor from cocoa beans

Enrobing process of chocolate

Chocolate assortments, confectionary bars coated with chocolate and chocolate cookies and cakes are all manufactured by coating process known as chocolate enrobing.

By completely covering the center with chocolate, the shelf-life of the product may be extended. This primarily applicable to centers that, if no covered, could be prone to moisture loss, oxidation or microbial action.

Enrobing can begin as soon as the centers have been sufficiently air-dried. Chocolate must be well tempered because over-tempering will create thick coating and will make revoking excess chocolate more difficult.

Normally the thickness and form of the coat are controlled by blowing off the excess mass using air and then vibration.

The quality of the temper should be closely monitored to ensure a thin, even coating of chocolate.

Molding gives a more obvious gloss to the finished product, whilst enrobing can cope with complex shapes and gives a soft and pleasing finish to the article.

Originally enrobing machine was introduced for chocolate coating; it now is also used for cream coating and caramel coating.
Enrobing process of chocolate

Characteristics of good cocoa powder

Cocoa powder is produced from liquor by removing some of the fat. This is carried out by hydraulic pressing of the liquor.

Cocoa powder can be described as the finely ground particles obtained from the mechanical disintegration of cocoa press cake containing not more than 9% water and not less than 20% cocoa butter calculated on the dry matter.

There are several physical properties of cocoa powder that are important to both the consumer and food manufacturers.

The fineness of the cocoa powder is determined by a combination of factors, such as the fineness of the liquor, type of alkalization and the final grinding step.

Cocoa powder contains fat ranging from 10 - 12% towards 22 - 24%.

The pH and color of cocoa powders are important characteristics and can vary significantly depending on the source of cocoa beans and how they are processed,

Natural cocoa powders have a lower pH and a characteristics light brown color while alkalized cocoa powders have higher pH and darker colors that range from dark brown to brownish red to dark red to black.

The flavor of cocoa powder is depending on alkalization and roasting condition, customized flavors can be developed. When needed flavors for example vanillin can be added.
Characteristics of good cocoa powder

Confectionery coating chocolate

The most basic definition of coating is ‘solid suspend within a fat base’. Compound coatings may be formulated with a combination of coca butter and compatible hard butter as the fat phase, or with hard butter as a total replacer of cocoa butter in the coating.

In this process coating solutions are melted under the influence of heat and hardened again by the removal of this heat.

Enrobing machines are normally used for chocolate coating. The machine also used for cream coating and caramel coating.

It is necessary to have a high enough yield value to prevent decorations from collapsing and to avoid the chocolate following off the centers, causing flags on the base edges.

The candy centers first are ‘bottomed’ by passing on a screen over a layer of molten chocolate. They then pass through a tunnel in which they are showered by molten chocolate.

The automated equipment permits coating and polishing in the same unit, while batch systems require transfer to another pan. A coating should have a rapid rate of solidification, so that production output can be kept at a high level.

Excess liquid chocolate is drained and returned to the tunnel and the pieces quickly cool, solidifying the coating.

Modern chocolate enrobers are large machines up to 2 m wide, and have elaborate control systems for temperature, air flow and amplitude and frequency of vibration.

Uniform coating at high speeds requires close control of the temperature of the incoming candy centers as well as the molten chocolate.
Confectionary coating chocolate

Chocolate as a Drink

Chocolate as a Drink
The first known cocoa plantations were established by the Maya in the lowlands of south Yucatan about 600 AD.

Cocoa trees were being grown by Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru when the Europeans discovered central America.

The bean were highly prized and used as money as well as to produce a drink known as chocolatl.

The beans were roasted in earthenware pots and crushed between stones, sometimes using decorated heated tables ad mill stones.

They could then be kneaded into cakes, which could be mixed with cold water to make a drink.

Vanilla, spices or honey were often added and the drink whipped to make it frothy. The Aztec Emperor Montezeuma was said to have drink 50 jars of this beverage per day.

Christopher Columbus bought back some coca beans to Europe as a curiosity, but it was only after the Spaniard conquered Mexico that Don Cortez introduced the drink to Spain in the 1520s.

Here sugar was added to overcome some of the bitter, astringent flavors, but the drinks remained virtually unknown in the rest of Europe for almost a hundred years, coming to Italy in 1606 and France in 1627.

It was very expensive and being a drink for the aristocracy, its spread was often connected to connections between powerful families.

For example the Spanish princess, Anna of Austria, introduced it to her husband King Louis XIII of France and the French court in about 1615. Here Cardinal Richelieu enjoyed it both as a drink to aid his digestion.

Its flavors was not liked by every one and one pope in fact declared that it could be drunk during fast, because it taste was so bad.

The first chocolate drinking houses were established in London in 1657 and it was mentioned in Pepys’s Diary of 1664 where he wrote that ‘jocolatte’ was ‘very good’.

In 1727 milk was added to the drink. This invention is generally attributed to Nicholas Sanders.

During the 18th century White’s Chocolate House became the fashionable place for young Londoners, while politicians of the day went to the Cocoa Tree Chocolate House.

One problem with the chocolate drink was that it was very fatty. Over half of the cocoa bean is made up of cocoa butter. This was melt in hot water making the cocoa particles hard to disperse as well as looking unpleasant because of fat coming to the surface.

The Dutch, however, found a way of improving the drink by removing part of this fat. In 1828 Van Houten developed the cocoa press.

This was quite remarkable, as his entire factory was manually operated at the time. The cocoa bean cotyledons (known as cocoa nibs) were pressed to produce a hard ‘cake’ with about half the fat removed.

This was milled into a powder, which could be used to produce a much less fatty drink. In order to make this powder disperse better in the hot water or milk, the Dutch treated the cocoa beans during the roasting process with an alkali liquid.

This has subsequently become known as the Dutching process. By changing the type of alkalizing agent, it also became possible to adjust the color of the cocoa powder.
Chocolate as a Drink

The origin of Chocolate*

The origin of Chocolate
Although chocolate may represent less than half of the weight of many confectionary products, it is nevertheless the key component that gives such products their special appeal.

Chocolate is unique in that – unlike most other foods, where there is always a degree of taste polarization – it is vary rare indeed to find anyone who claims to dislike it.

Cocoa was first discovered by Europeans in South America. The Aztecs traditionally itself the seeds of the Theobroma cacao to make a drink by extracting the seeds from the cocoa pod and fermenting, drying and grinding them; the powder was then mixed with water.

It was cocoa as a drink that was imported by the Spaniards into Europe in the seventeenth century.

Later, Van Houten developed a process for pressing a proportion of the fat from the dried powder in order to make it more palatable: at about 50% fat, the drink made from untreated cocoa must have been very heavy. Modern drinking cocoas, by contrast, contain only 20% or less of fat.

At first, the expressed cocoa butter must have been a troublesome by product with relatively low value. But by mixing the cocoa butter back with unpressed cocoa and sugar, it was possible to make an entirely new product, namely solid chocolate for eating.

Now it is the partially defatted cocoa for drinking and cooking that is the cheaper by product.

The very broad appeal of chocolate as a food is difficult to explain. Part of its attraction is related to the particular melting characteristics of cocoa butter with its very sharp melting point at just below body temperatures; this give a very clean residual impression on the palate at the end of mastication.

But added to this is the characteristics flavor of cocoa which, as well as being attractive in its own right, seems to further eliminate any sensation of fatty after taste.
The origin of Chocolate

Fermentation and Drying Process

Fermentation and Drying Process
The correct fermentation and drying process of cacao are of vital importance as no subsequent processing of the bean will correct bad practice at this stage.

A good flavor in the final cocoa or chocolate is related closely to good fermentation, but if the drying after fermentation is retarded, molds develop and these also impart very unpleasant flavors even if fermentation has been carried out correctly.

The chemical processes involved are not entirely fermenting reactions and the changes that occur in the combined processes of fermentation and drying are sometimes referred to as curing.

After the pods are cut form the trees, the beans with the adhering pulp are removed and transferred to heaps boxes or baskets for fermentation to take place.

Small farmers tend to use the heap method whereas the box method is employed in larger plantations, and is also used on a smaller scale in South America and the West Indies. In Nigeria a basket method has been used, with the baskets lined with leaves.

Fermentation lasts from five to six days. Forastero beans take rather longer than Criollo and during the first day, the adhering pulp becomes liquid and drains away, with the temperature rising steadily.

By the third day, the mass of beans will have fairly evenly heated to 45 degree C and will remain between this temperature and about 50 degree C until fermentation is complete.
Fermentation and Drying Process