Chocolate finder

Narrows eighty chocolate types to a handful, from what you want rather than what you already know the name of — and shows the reasoning for every suggestion.

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86 chocolate types — narrow it with the controls above.

Aerated chocolate

Chocolate with gas bubbles set into it. The aeration changes how fast it melts, which changes how the flavour arrives.

What the percentage means here: Refers to the chocolate itself and is unaffected by the aeration. What the percentage cannot tell you is the density, which is what makes an aerated bar feel like less chocolate for the same wrapper.

Artisan chocolate

The least defined word in the domain. It usually means a chocolatier working by hand — which frequently means remoulding somebody else's chocolate.

That artisan implies the maker produced the chocolate itself. It usually describes handwork with bought couverture, which is a different and equally real craft.

What the percentage means here: Unrelated to composition.

What to make with it: Making filled chocolates

Bake-stable chocolate

Chocolate formulated to hold its shape through an oven. The batons inside a pain au chocolat, and a close relative of the chocolate chip.

What the percentage means here: Whatever it means for the underlying composition. What the percentage does not tell you is the reduced cocoa butter fraction, which is the defining property.

What to make with it: Baking with chocolate, Baking with chocolate chips

Baking chocolate

A product format covering several different things, which is why substituting one for another so often goes wrong.

That 'baking chocolate' names one product. It names two quite different ones on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and recipes rarely say which they assume.

What the percentage means here: Unsweetened baking chocolate is effectively 100% — all cacao-derived mass. Sweetened 'cooking chocolate' carries an ordinary dark percentage. The two are sold under the same phrase in different markets, so the percentage is the only reliable way to tell which one is in your hand.

What to make with it: Baking with chocolate

Bean-to-bar chocolate

A claim about who did the manufacturing, not about the recipe. The maker roasts, grinds and refines the beans themselves rather than buying finished chocolate.

That bean-to-bar and single-origin mean the same thing. They answer different questions — who made it, and where the beans came from — and a bar can be either, both or neither. Also that the term is regulated. It is not, and there is no audit behind it.

What the percentage means here: Unrelated. Bean-to-bar describes the manufacturing chain and says nothing about composition.

Bittersweet chocolate

A US standard of identity that shares its legal floor with semisweet chocolate — which means the two words guarantee nothing about the difference readers assume between them.

That bittersweet is a defined step above semisweet. It is the same legal category under a different name, and the comparison only means something within one maker's range.

What the percentage means here: Total cacao-derived mass, as on any dark chocolate. Because the name itself carries no information beyond the shared 35% floor, the percentage is the only reliable guide to what is in a bittersweet bar — and a bar printing no percentage is telling you nothing.

What to make with it: Choosing chocolate for brownies, Molten chocolate puddings

Black cocoa

Heavily alkalised cocoa powder, near-black in colour. Used for appearance rather than flavour, and it is milder than it looks.

That black cocoa is the most intense cocoa available. It is the most alkalised, and alkalisation reduces flavour along with acidity.

What the percentage means here: As with any cocoa powder, any percentage refers to residual fat. Colour is emphatically not a proxy for strength here.

Blended-origin chocolate

Chocolate from beans of more than one origin, combined deliberately. A skill rather than a failure to specify.

That a blend is a lesser product than a single-origin bar. They optimise for different things — consistency against distinctiveness — and a reader who wants the same bar next year is better served by a blend.

What the percentage means here: Whatever it means for the composition. Blending says nothing about the percentage.

Blonde chocolate

White chocolate cooked until its milk sugars caramelise. A technique rather than a composition, and one you can do at home.

What the percentage means here: Refers to cocoa butter, as on any white chocolate. The caramelisation changes nothing about the cacao content.

What to make with it: Tempering white chocolate

Bonbon

A moulded chocolate shell with a filling. The modern professional term for what Belgium calls a praline, and the piece that most tests a maker's tempering.

What the percentage means here: Refers to the shell chocolate where it is quoted. As with any filled piece, the shell is a minority of the mass and the filling determines most of the eating experience.

What to make with it: Cleaning chocolate equipment, Making chocolate cups, Making filled chocolates, Packaging chocolates

Cacao nibs

Cracked, winnowed cacao bean — the raw material of every chocolate there is, sold as an ingredient in its own right.

That nibs are a healthier chocolate. They are unprocessed cacao, which means more of the compounds chocolate manufacturing reduces — and also that they are bitter and astringent enough that most people eat very few. No health claim in this catalogue rests on them.

What the percentage means here: Not applicable in the usual sense: nibs are entirely cacao, so any percentage on a packet is confirming that rather than distinguishing one product from another. Where nibs carry an origin, that claim behaves exactly as it does on a bar.

Cacao pulp

The white mucilage around the beans in the pod. The fermentation's fuel, and — increasingly — a product in its own right.

That cacao fruit products taste of chocolate. They taste of tropical fruit. Chocolate flavour is created by fermenting and roasting the seed, and the pulp is the part that gets consumed in the process rather than transformed by it.

What the percentage means here: Not applicable. Cacao pulp contains no cocoa solids or cocoa butter at all, and a cacao percentage on a pulp product would be meaningless.

Read this alongside the suggestions

These are chocolate types, not products. No maker or brand is named anywhere in this catalogue, and none is implied.
Percentage ranges are what the type usually spans, not what any particular bar contains. Read the bar.
Two bars of the same type from different makers can differ more than two types from one maker, because roast and fermentation outweigh category.

What this cannot tell you

It returns chocolate types, never brands or products. This catalogue holds no maker records and none is implied by any suggestion.
Percentage ranges are what a type usually spans, not what any particular bar contains. Two bars of the same type can sit at opposite ends of the range.
Roast profile and fermentation influence flavour more than category does, so two bars of the same type from different makers can differ more than two types from one maker.
Flavour families are an editorial judgement recorded per type, not a measurement of any bar.
Where the catalogue has no evidence about a type for a purpose it says so rather than guessing, which means a genuinely suitable chocolate can be scored low simply because nothing has been written about it yet.

Why it never names a brand

A recommendation that names a maker is a shopping list, and a shopping list is out of date the week it is written. It is also the point at which a knowledge platform starts being paid to have opinions. ChocolateHQ holds no brand records at all, which is what makes that failure impossible here rather than merely discouraged. What the finder returns is a type — the category a bar belongs to — and the reasoning that got it there, so you can walk into any shop and judge what is in front of you. See how to buy craft chocolate for the shelf-side version of the same method.

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