Chocolate spread
A soft chocolate-flavoured paste, kept spreadable by vegetable oil and sugar. Descended from gianduja, and generally much further from it than the packaging implies.
What it is
Chocolate spreads keep a soft texture at room temperature by using liquid vegetable oil rather than cocoa butter, together with a high sugar content. That is a formulation decision rather than a shortcut — cocoa butter sets hard at room temperature, so a spread made with it would not spread.
The category descends from gianduja, and the better products are recognisably that: real hazelnut paste and real chocolate, softened. Mass-market spreads are typically sugar first, vegetable oil second, with hazelnut and cocoa well down the list. Both are legitimate products; they are very different ones, and the ingredients list separates them in about three seconds.
- Category kind
- A product format — this describes how it is sold
- Legal status
- Industry convention, not a legal definition
- Also called
- chocolate hazelnut spread, cocoa spread
- Flavour families
- sweet, nutty
- Texture
- creamy, smooth
What the percentage means here
Rarely quoted and not very informative when it is, because a spread's character is dominated by its sugar and oil fractions. The ingredients order tells you more than any percentage.
Related
Commonly confused with
- GiandujaSpreads descend from gianduja and are generally much further from it than the packaging implies — sugar and vegetable oil first, hazelnut well down the list.
Pairs with
- BreadSpreads exist for this. They stay soft at room temperature specifically so they can be spread on bread, which solid chocolate cannot.
History and culture
- Turin and giandujaThe industrial descendant of the same substitution, and the largest-volume form it takes.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)
- Directive 2000/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption — European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2000(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)