On Food and Cooking

each other, and coats all of them evenly with
cocoa butter, so that when the finished
chocolate melts, it flows smoothly. Second,
conching greatly improves the flavor of the
chocolate, not by heightening it, but by
mellowing it. The aeration and moderate heat
causes as much as 80% of the volatile
aromatic compounds (and excess moisture) to
evaporate out of the chocolate liquor.
Fortunately, many of these are undesirable
volatiles, including various acids and
aldehydes; acidity steadily declines during
conching. At the same time, a number of
desirable volatiles are augmented by the heat
and mixing, notably those with roasted,
caramel, and malty aromas (pyrazines,
furaneol, maltol).
Both cocoa butter and a small amount of
the emulsifier lecithin (p. 802) are added to
the chocolate mass toward the end of
conching. The additional cocoa butter is
necessary to provide sufficient lubrication for