Sugars · Ck2

Dark chocolate

≥70% cocoa · 598 kcal

Per 100 g

598 kcal Energy

7.8 g Protein

45.9 g Carbs

42.6 g Fat

10.9 g Fibre

Trace risk SOY GI 0

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They do more than sweeten: they bind moisture, raise the boiling point and produce colour and crust. A jam sets and keeps because of sugar.

Where it catches you out

Each sugar browns at its own temperature. Sucrose at 160 °C, the fructose in honey and molasses at 110 — anything with honey burns sooner.

The knack

Cocoa butter sets in five different crystal forms and only one of them (form V) is glossy and snaps. That is why melted chocolate must not pass 45 °C and should be worked at 31–32 °C: tempering is not decoration, it is deciding which crystal you get.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

A year at 18–20 °C, dry and away from smells. Refrigerated chocolate blooms sugar on its surface: harmless, but the texture is gone.

Cross-contamination risk

Cocoa and sugar are gluten free; the whole risk is cross-contact with biscuit lines in the same factory.

Allergen: SOY

Glycaemic index

0 — glucose is taken as 100. Below 55 is low, 56–69 medium, 70 and above high. The number says nothing about portion: at the same index, twice the amount is twice the load.