varies according to the manufacturer’s needs.
To make cocoa powder and cocoa butter, the
liquor is pressed through a fine filter that
retains the cocoa particles while allowing the
butter to flow through. The compacted cake of
cocoa particles is then made into cocoa
powder (below), while the butter becomes an
important ingredient in all kinds of
manufactured chocolate.
Conching Pure cocoa liquor has a
concentrated chocolate taste, and may be
hardened and packaged as is for use in baked
goods. But its flavor is relatively rough, bitter,
and astringent and acidic. To make it into
something not only edible but delicious,
manufacturers add a few other ingredients:
sugar for dark chocolate, sugar and dry milk
solids for milk chocolate, some vanilla (the
whole bean, or an extract, or artificial
vanillin), and a supplement of pure cocoa
butter. And they subject the mixture to an