Chocolate

The history of chocolate is so fairy-tale-like exactly because it invites you to play, awakens your creativity, so the combinations with various other flavours were gradually discovered throughout centuries. This particular property is the crux of a dilemma that is still without a definitive answer: is creation of different chocolate sweets a science or an art?

Chocolatiers, jealously keeping their recipes secret, all agree on one thing – you have to feel chocolate in order to create miracles out of it. Thus, it is not enough just to know the ingredients of the material and its nutritional properties. In one Belgradian chocolate shop, they explain that the irresistibility of their chocolate desserts comes from the fact that it’s made out of pure cocoa, and not cocoa butter – which is used in technological production of mass-produced chocolate available in supermarkets.

Their shelf-life is thus far shorter, but their flavour is unrepeatable and their composition devoid of any additives and preservatives, which is an obsession of our times – to constantly search for a recipe for a healthy lifestyle.

For chocolate desserts of the kind we enjoy today, we can thank Van Houten, who discovered the machine to process cocoa beans. Fermented cocoa beans are processed in presses to remove fat, i.e. cocoa butter. The remaining solids are ground, yielding cocoa powder. Later, the two fractions are mixed and sugar is added to yield the chocolate we know today.

Anything else is just a matter of imagination and culinary skill.