On Food and Cooking

of chocolate, and the mildest. It contains
milk solids and a large proportion of
sugar, which together usually outweigh
the combination of cocoa solids and
cocoa butter. Thanks to its relatively low
cocoa butter content, milk chocolate
tends to be softer and less snappy than
bittersweet chocolate.
Couverture chocolate (from the French
for “to cover”) is dark or milk chocolate
formulated to flow easily when melted,
and therefore to work well for forming
thin, delicate chocolate coatings. This
means adding more cocoa butter than
usual to provide plenty of room for the
cocoa and sugar particles to move past
each other. Most couvertures are 31–38%
fat.
“White chocolate” is chocolate-less
chocolate: it contains no cocoa particles
whatsoever, and therefore has little or no
chocolate flavor. White chocolate was