National Chocolate Week (UK)

10th - 16th October 2011

Life is like a box of chocolates. . . full of nuts

Jump to:-    History  |  Cooking with Chocolate  |  Recipes for National Chocolate Week

See Also:    Tempering Chocolate  |   Chocolate Ganache  |  Origin, History & Uses of Chocolate  | Chocolate Recipes 

There is another National Chocolate week in March (USA) plus several Chocolate Days during the year, but who's complaining!

A brief History of Chocolate

1502 - Christopher Columbus introduces chocolate to Spain from his fourth voyage to the New World in 1502 but not as the product we know today. It was only consumed as a drink. The word "chocolate" was derived from the Aztec word xocolatl which means bitter water.

1615 – Anne of Austria (wife of Louis XIII) declares chocolate as the drink of the French Court , although this was only after much skepticism, as initially it was considered a "barbarous product and noxious drug".

1640 – chocolate finds its way to England, among other European countries.

1657-  the drink becomes a best seller in England and excessive duties are imposed on chocolate. It takes almost 200 years before the duty is dropped.

1828 - Dutch chocolate maker Conrad J. Van Houten created the hydraulic cocoa press. The press enabled chocolate makers to crush the "nibs," or centers, of roasted cacao beans into a paste (Chocolate Liquor). After crushing, some of the cocoa butter was extracted.

1848 - English chocolate maker Joseph Storrs Fry created the first eating chocolate by further refining the cocoa, adding sugar, and mixing the cocoa butter back in. 

1875  -  Swiss Daniel Peter added condensed milk  to  chocolate and marketed the first solid milk chocolate bar.

Chocolate in cooking

When using chocolate for culinary purposes, use as  high a quality as you can afford - i.e. containing  higher proportions of cocoa solids,  preferably 40% for milk chocolate and 70% for dark chocolate. This information can usually be found in the ingredients section on the label.

Be very careful when melting chocolate as too high a heat can make it split. Therefore always melt in a heatproof bowl over very hot water in a small saucepan. It can also be successfully melted in the microwave using a medium setting.

For more information about chocolate visit our Chocolate ingredient analysis page.

Recipes for National Chocolate Week

Below is a link to our Chocolate Recipes page which features sweet and savoury recipes using all forms of  chocolate. For even more chocolate recipes visit the Search Page and type in chocolate.

Chocolate Recipes - Sweet and Savoury recipes using Plain, Milk and White chocolate