References:

Plants and Society, pages 266-269.
On Food and Cooking, pages 397-422.

What is chocolate?
What is candy?
How is chocolate made?
How is candy made?
Where did chocolate originate?
What is the history of chocolate?
What are some of the problems associated with growing Theobroma cacao?

Confectionery is essentially the making of edible items for pleasure only, not for nutrition in any sense. That is, we are not talking about ways of making wonderful tasting roast beef, but of making something with essentially zero nutritional value that one eats only for pleasure. While many accessory foods have been consumed more or less for pleasure, the real confectionery industry developed following the mass production of sugar, and the manufacture of candies and candied items. The production of candied (sugared) items in western Europe probably began with the drug trade, where druggists would coat their herbal remedies with sugar or honey, and possibly even embed the medicine in candy, producing something like a lozenge.

Candy is made by heating up a concentrated sugar solution until the solution boils, and controlling it's transition to a solid. Water will boil at 212^oF. If we add sugar, or any solute to the water, the boiling point rises. Remember that when a liquid boils, molecules are going from the liquid phase to the gas phase. While the water cannot be heated to greater than 212^oF, the sugar can. As we heat a sugar solution, water boils off and the sugar becomes more concentrated. An 85% sugar solution (85 grams of sugar in 100ml of water) will boil at 235^oF. If we stop at 85%, and let it cool, we get fudge. If we let the solution boil, and more water vaporizes, the sugar concentration rises. If the sugar concentration rises to 90% (270^oF), and we let it cool, we get taffy. If we let the temperature rise to 300^oF, near 100% sugar, and then let it cool, we get brittles and hard candies. Stirring the syrup while it is boiling makes for smaller, more uniform crystals, and a finer candy. While one can use a thermometer to determine the temperature of the syrup, with homemade candies, people generally use the cold spoon test, just spoon out a small amount of the sugar, let it cool, and see what you get.

Chocolate

Chocolate is produced from seeds (beans) of the tree Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree. In the case of confections, the most popular confections involve the addition of chocolate to a sugar solution to produce a candy. Chocolate contains the stimulant THEOBROMINE, a compound chemical similar to caffeine, with similar physiological effects on humans. Caffeine and theobromine are alkaloids, which are produced by plants as a defense against herbivory. Squirrels, for example, know better than to eat something that contains caffeine or theobromine!

The cacao tree originated in tropical South America, and spread throughout the tropical new world as a result of human cultivation. Indian civilization in pre-Columbian Central and South America considered the nuts of the cacao tree to be a "gift from the gods", and they were used as the central ingredient in a hot beverage that included peppers and vanilla. The word cocoa, that we use to refer to a beverage made of cacao beans and sugar, is a mispronunciation of cacao. Chocolate is derived from the Aztec word chocolatl, which refers to the drink .

Europeans who first visited the new world did not find the drink made from seeds of the cacao tree particularly inviting, however within a couple of generations they had already begun to adapt it to their own tastes. The beans were exported to Europe, where they were used as in the new world, to make a hot liquid beverage. Chocolate houses appeared that were similar to coffee houses. Chocolate, however did not catch on as well as coffee, and the beans contain lipids that made the drink unappealing to many, and the lipids also caused the beans to spoil more easily than those of coffee.

During the era of the inquisition in Europe, chocolate was attacked by certain elements of the church based on its origin in the new world. It was called an "agent of necromancers and sorcerers" by certain clerics. Chocolate houses (and associated clubs) continued to flourish in Europe, and it was there that many variations on the preparation of chocolate were developed. In England, for example, the club called "The Cocoa Tree" catered to the Tories while a club called "White's" catered to the Whigs. The Whigs and the Tories were the 2 major political parties of England for many years. The era we are discussing here is from the late middle ages through to the industrial revolution. Things like eggs, milk and coffee were added to chocolate.

Chocolate remained a beverage until the late 17th century, when people started mixing concentrated chocolate with sugar syrup to produce a candy. In the early 19th century, the Dutch made a major innovation in chocolate production by pressing the beans so as to separate the cocoa "butter" from the cocoa "power". This was done to make the drink less oily. Today we mix the cocoa powder with sugar to make hot chocolate. Prior to the separation of the butter from the powder, "hot chocolate" would be a drink similar to what you would get if you ground up and dissolved unsweetened bakers chocolate in water. While the powder was a major innovation with respect to the drink, the butter was the major innovation with respect to making chocolate confections. Mixing cocoa butter with ordinary ground beans allowed for a smooth paste that was easy to mix with other ingredients, and lead to the first "eating chocolates". The chocolate bar did not appear until the early 20th century, and was greatly popularized in the US during WWII, where it was distributed as a major ration for troops, being described as a high energy "fighting food".

Chocolate is grown in most tropical countries, although a major limitation on chocolate production is the lack of pollinators. The Cacao tree is pollinated by a biting midge that lives in the leaf litter of the humid South American tropical rain forest. However, a lot of areas where the cacao tree is cultivated for chocolate production are much drier, and the midge does not do well in such dry areas. Things like placement of rotting bananas in the orchards have been used to try to provide habitat for imported midges, and has helped raise pollination rates from around 1% to over 15%. Another problem with cultivation of cacao trees is that animals are highly attracted to the fruits and will take them, eating the outer husk and discarding the seeds, which are what we eat, but too bitter for the animals that disperse the seeds (they carry off the fruits, eat the husk and discard the seeds).

In processing, the beans are heated to 248 - 284^oF for 20-50 minutes to release the full flavor, and then cracked open to release the cotyledons (called "nibs"). The nibs are crushed to produce a dark oily paste called the chocolate liquor. The liquor can be solidified into squares of baker chocolate, or the cocoa butter can be removed by using heat and pressure, leaving a brown cake that is pulverized into cocoa powder. Cocoa butter is mixed with liquor to make confectionery chocolate. Cocoa butter is essentially white chocolate (when mixed with sugar and milk). The FDA does not consider white chocolate as chocolate because it contains no chocolate liquor.

Confectionery chocolate is produced by mixing chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, sugar vanilla and usually milk. The mixture is stirred and kneaded over several days (a process called conching). After conching, the chocolate is poured into molds and cooled.