Have Swiss scientists made a chocolate breakthrough?

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Have Swiss scientists made a chocolate breakthrough?

BBC
Imogen Foulkes
1 day ago

Imagine picking up a nice juicy apple - but instead of biting into it you keep the seeds and throw the rest away.

That's what chocolate producers have traditionally done with the cocoa fruit - used the beans and disposed of the rest.

But now food scientists in Switzerland have come up with a way to make chocolate using the entire cocoa fruit rather than just the beans - and without using sugar.

The chocolate, developed at Zurich’s prestigious Federal Institute of Technology by scientist Kim Mishra and his team includes the cocoa fruit pulp, the juice, and the husk, or endocarp.

The process has already attracted the attention of sustainable food companies.

They say traditional chocolate production, using only the beans, involves leaving the rest of the cocoa fruit – the size of a pumpkin and full of nutritious value - to rot in the fields.

The key to the new chocolate lies in its very sweet juice, which tastes, Mr Mishra explains, "very fruity, a bit like pineapple".

This juice, which is 14% sugar, is distilled down to form a highly concentrated syrup, combined with the pulp and then, taking sustainability to new levels, mixed with the dried husk, or endocarp, to form a very sweet cocoa gel.

The gel, when added to the cocoa beans to make chocolate, eliminates the need for sugar.

(more)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn47zg3xgxxo

[Free Vulcan]

As the old timers used to say here - 'when we slaughtered pigs, we used everything but the squeal'.

From the old backwoods perspective, that's the way you do it.

[Gefn]

Is Chocolate one of the best things in life?

[mountaineer]

Hard to believe it took them this long to consider using the rest of the fruit!

[Kamaji]

Uh, little problem with the article - this doesn't eliminate the need for sugar, it reduces or eliminates the need to add extra sugar from other sources.

[Polly Ticks]

I volunteer to taste test for them.

[Smokin Joe]

Well if they just got close, but didn't make it, it's a Swiss Miss....

[Kamaji]

Well if they just got close, but didn't make it, it's a Swiss Miss....

[Sighlass]

Being there was a bad crop this year and chocolate prices are out the roof.... I wonder if this process is worth the trouble in years where there is a bumper crop? If this new process is cost effective, I will them them luck in working out all the kinks.

[Sighlass]

I volunteer to taste test for them.

Well I will take sloppy second dibs on this job... lol.