White 'Chocolate'

Recently I went on a chocolate buying spree.  This was mostly because The Mothership's stocks needed topping up/completely replacing after The Geek God and I had done our worst, but I also got inspired by the range of chocolate available, and decided to do some taste testing. 

I thought I'd try something I don't normally buy, white chocolate.  I don't buy it because I don't like it.  Urban myths claim there is a certain number of times one has to try a new food before learning to like it, and it's definitely true that I had to go through a stage of making myself consume certain food and drinks before learning to love them: tea, coffee, wine, beer and ginger (the token food in that list) all spring to mind. 

Back to white chocolate.  I decided that the best quality chocolate was the most likely to introuduce me to what is good about white chocolate, so I bought Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Swiss White Chocolate and Green and Black's White Chocolate.

The 'Taste the Difference' chocolate didn't taste any different.. to milkybar- I subsequently bought a milkybar so I could compare them at the same sitting. 

The difference I did find, however, was that the Taste the Difference chocolate had a very smooth texture whereas the milkybar texture was grainy.  The blurb on the Taste the Difference packet focussed on how the 'mouthfeel' was smoother because the chocolate had been conched for longer.  Usefully it even tells you what a conche is- "a container which grinds the ingredients together."  Looking into this in a bit more detail, it turns out that conching achieves a smooth texture by making the particles very small (so small your tongue doesn't perceive them as individual particles anymore) and evenly distributing the solids within the cocoa butter. Conching also allows flavours to develop because it generates frictional heat which releases volatile compounds in the choclate which we can taste.

So that's the thoery.  In practice no flavours to developed other than sugar, and maybe a hint of cream but this was mostly blugeoned out by the sweetness.  It was also a bit off-putting tasting something so ridiculously sweet yet totally smooth.

Sainsburys did well to focus on the texture for their marketing on the packet because the flavour is so unremarkable.  It gets 3/10, and that's only because if you're after a sugar hit, it would do the job.  It's not revolting, just too sweet.

The rest of the bar got experiemented on- I melted it down then mixed instant coffee granules into it.  This was more of a 5/10 but the amount of coffee granules it took to make it taste good meant you'd have serious caffeine overload if you ate more than a tiny bit!  You could also probably use this chocolate with eggs and coffee to make an easy coffee mousse for friends who like coffee but not dark chocolate.

The Green and Black's effort had a speckly appearance because it contains "fragrant Madasgascan vanilla for a creamy taste."  It was definitely "fragrant", reminding me of what happens when you're baking and you accidentally use way too much vanilla essence.  I'd also argue that it is the whole milk powder and cocoa butter that gives the creamy taste, not the vanilla as they claim.  I was unimpressed with the taste.

The texture was more fudgy than the Taste the Difference chocolate; presumably Green and Black's aren't such big fans of hardcore conching, and I preferred it that way because if you're eating something that is mostly sugar it makes sense if you can tell this from the texture.  Another 3/10.

In conclusion, I still don't like white chocolate, and I have new theory on the 'trying new foods' thing.  This probably works for complex flavours, e.g. getting a toddler to grow into an adult who likes black olives and anchovies and red wine.  But I reckon it doesn't work so much with tastes that are arguably childish to begin with.