Cocoa solids are just that--solid. They determine the intensity of the chocolate flavor, but it is the cocoa butter that determines the mouth feel, because cocoa butter is a fat that is solid at room temperature but liquid at mouth temperature. And while the marketers will sometimes tell you how much cocoa solid there is in your chocolate bar, you generally have to buy chocolate packaged for confectionery usage to get much information about cocoa butter content.

You wouldn't eat a teaspoon of pure cocoa solids, but you wouldn't want to eat a teaspoon of pure cocoa butter, either. (We did taste some of both at chocolate school.)

Lecithin is more of a solidifying agent, though it does impact mouth feel. Increasing lecithin while decreasing cocoa butter produces a similar (though IMHO less satisfying) mouth feel at a lower cost.

Similarly, other fats (such as coconut or palm kernel oil) are a lot cheaper and less temperamental than cocoa butter and are used in cheaper chocolates.

I was taught (never went to chocolate school sadly but in generic baking/cooking classes from pastry chefs friends) that chocolate is, at its essence, cocoa and cocoa butter. That's what my unsweetened chocolate it. I forget the cocoa percentage and I won't be home to check for a couple days.

Most chocolate only talks about cocoa percentage. No one thinks about cocoa butter, even when buying white chocolate which should be cocoa butter with no cocoa. If you look at what passes for most white chocolate out there it is mostly anything but cocoa butter. It's milk and sugar and vanilla and lots of other stuff.

My semi sweet is cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, and lecithin. Bittersweet is the same ingredients in different proportions - more cocoa and less sugar.

Dairy is semi sweet plus milk which can vary itself in terms of fat and sugar content.

I use Callebaut for bulk chocolate and Guittard for chocolate chips. I cannot buy Callebaut chips except by mail-order and my favorite pastry chef of all time favors Guittard. I cannot tell the difference between Guittard and Toll House but my family likes them. When I'm not lazy I chop my bulk chocolate into chips and use it.

Of the stuff I buy Milk is usually in the mid 30s for cocoa, semi sweet in the 40s-50s, and bittersweet in 60s and up. Then there is "dark" which is anywhere from the 50s on up. I sometimes will use Bakers semi sweet and unsweetened, especially if I do not have a scale to weigh it out. I've never used their German chocolate. I like their product it's just harder to find these days. Not sure why.

I wish the same government org that gave Callebaut a hard time about ruby chocolate would put a bit of that effort behind "dark".

One more addition - pure cocoa butter from the Chocolate Man! When I lived in Seattle I ordered from him a couple of times. He was selling out of his house back then and one order was during a particularly hot summer. He came by and personally dropped of the order rather than chance it sitting on my porch in the heat. VERY nice man and very generous with his expertise.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

Sometimes the "mice" find and eat chocolate at my house too! Occasionally they've even broken into the unsweetened chocolate which no one does more than once.

The chips go faster than the bulk.