The percentages in the name
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The four
- Sweet chocolate: not less than 15 percent by weight of chocolate liquor.
- Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate: not less than 35 percent by weight of chocolate liquor.
- Milk chocolate: not less than 10 percent chocolate liquor, not less than 3.39 percent milkfat and not less than 12 percent total milk solids.
- White chocolate: not less than 20 percent cacao fat, not less than 3.5 percent milkfat, not less than 14 percent total milk solids, and not more than 55 percent sweetener.
Chocolate liquor is not alcohol
It is the ground cacao nib, the whole bean solids and fat together, and the name confuses nearly everybody who meets it first in a regulation. The percentage figures above are all about how much of that is in the product.
Which is what a cacao percentage on a label means
A bar marked seventy percent is describing how much of it is derived from the cacao bean, liquor plus added cocoa butter, with the remainder mostly sugar. Higher is not automatically better; it is less sweet and more dependent on the quality of the bean.
If you buy couverture, the claim is the supplier’s
Almost every small confectioner buys finished chocolate and works with it rather than making it from beans. That means the percentages, the origin and any certification belong to the manufacturer and you are repeating them, so you need the specification in writing.
Compound coating is a different product
A coating made with vegetable fat rather than cocoa butter does not meet these standards and may not be called chocolate. It also does not need tempering, which is exactly why people use it, and that convenience is the trade. Call it what it is.
White chocolate has the tightest definition
It is the only one of the four with a maximum as well as minimums, capping sweetener at 55 percent. A very sweet white product can fail the standard from the top rather than the bottom, which surprises people.
The percentage is not a quality score
Buyers read a high cacao number as better, and all it describes is composition. A seventy percent bar made from poor beans is worse than a sixty percent one made from good ones, and the number says nothing about origin, fermentation or roast. It is a useful fact and it is not a verdict.