CHOCOLATES

Confectionery items include sweets, lollipops, candy bars, chocolate, and other sweet items of snack food. The term does not generally apply to cakes, biscuits, or puddings which require cutlery to consume, although exceptions such as petits fours or meringues exist. Speakers of American English do not refer to these items as "candy." American English classifies many confections as candy. The many categories and types of candy include:

Hard candy: Based on sugars cooked to the hard-crack stage, including suckers (known as boiled sweets in British English), lollipops, jawbreakers (or gobstoppers), lemon drops, peppermint drops and disks, candy canes, rock candy, etc.

Fudge: A confection of milk and sugar boiled to the soft-ball stage. In the US, it tends to be chocolate-flavored.

Toffee (or Taffy): Based on sugars cooked to the soft-ball stage and then pulled to create an elastic texture. In British English, it's a hard substance, frequently sold with a hammer, which is used to crack it into fragments.

Swiss Milk Tablet: A crumbly milk-based soft candy, based on sugars cooked to the soft-ball stage. Comes in several forms, such as wafers and heart shapes.

Licorice candy: Containing extract of the liquorice root. Chewier and more resilient than gum/gelatin candies, but still designed for swallowing. For example, Liquorice allsorts. A chocolate candy

.Chocolates: Used in the plural, usually referring to small balled centers covered with chocolate to create bite-sized confectionery. People who create chocolates are called chocolatiers, and they create their confections with couverture chocolate. A chocolate maker, on the other hand, is the person who physically creates the couverture from cacao beans and other ingredients. Gum/Gelatin candies: Based on gelatins, including gum drops, jujubes, Lokum / Turkish Delight, jelly beans, gummies, etc. Marshmallow: "Peeps" (a trade name), circus peanuts, etc. Marzipan: An almond-based confection, doughy in consistency, served in several different ways. It is often formed into shapes mimicking (for example) fruits or animals. Alternatively, marzipan may be flavored, normally with spirits such as Kirsch or Rum, and divided into small bite-sized pieces; these flavored marzipans are generally served coated in chocolate to prevent the alcohol from evaporating, and are very common in northern Europe. Marzipan is also used in cake decoration.

Its lower-priced version is called Persipan. Divinity: A nougat-like confectionery based on egg whites with chopped nuts. Hand made Chocolate is all about innovation, bringing a different approach to the art of handmade chocolate making. An approach that, by common assent, has resulted in a range of deliciously different luxury Fresh Fruit Chocolate Truffles, Champagne Truffles, Chocolate Fudge, Liqueur Marzipan, Liqueur Chocolates etc, all with a unique fresh English quality.

 HOW CHOCOLATE IS MADE?

Producing chocolate is a time consuming and complicated process, but we have endeavored to provide a simplified guide which we hope you will find easy to understand:The first step is the harvesting of the cocoa pods containing the cocoa beans. The Pods are crushed and the beans and surrounding pulp extracted and fermented naturally for about six days in either open heaps or boxes after which the beans are dried. The finest chocolate is produced when the drying process is done naturally by the sun for 7 days or more. Accelerated or artificial drying is quicker, but produces inferior quality chocolate, mainly used in mass produced products and cake coverings. The next process is shared with coffee in that the beans are first graded, then roasted. Roasting times depend on the type and size of the beans. Light Crushing separates the kernel or 'Nib' from the shell or husk which is then separated or 'winnowed' out and discarded. At this stage most manufacturers put the Cocoa Nibs through an alkalization process to help develop flavor and color. However, some purists producing the finest chocolate prefer to rely on the quality of the beans and natural processing to produce the best color and flavor. The nibs, which are very high in fat or cocoa butter, are then finely milled and liquefy in the heat produced by the milling process to produce cocoa liquor. When cocoa liquor is allowed to cool and solidify it is known as cocoa mass. At this point the manufacturing process splits according to the final product. If the end product is chocolate, some of the cocoa liquor is reserved, the rest is pressed to extract the cocoa butter leaving a solid residue called press cake.  Press cake is usually kibbled or finely ground to produce the product known to consumers as Cocoa Powder. The retained Cocoa Liquor and/or solid Cocoa Mass is blended with Chocolate Butter and other ingredients to produce the various types of chocolate as follows:

BLENDING

Cocoa Liquor and/or Cocoa Mass is blended back with cocoa butter in varying quantities to make different types of chocolate. The finest plain or dark chocolate should contain 70% Cocoa solids or more, whereas the best Milk Chocolate contains 30% or more Cocoa solids and the best White Chocolate contains 25% or more Cocoa Butter. In addition most chocolate contains a sweetener, usually sugar, this is because without some kind of sweetener, chocolate would be so bitter as to be virtually inedible. The other most commonly added ingredients are natural Vanilla or artificial Vanilla (Vanillin) for flavor and Lethicin as an emulsifier. It's a well established fact that most people love chocolate, last year chocolate lovers in the UK alone, spent over £3 billion ($4.5 billion) on over half a million metric tons of chocolate products (including biscuits etc)! U.S. Consumers spent more than $7 billion (£5½ billion) and ate 2.8 billion pounds (1.27 billion kilo's) of chocolate alone (not including coated biscuits etc), representing nearly half of the world's entire chocolate production. The average U.S. citizen eats 12 lbs (5.45kg) of chocolate annually, second only to the Swiss who consume a staggering 22lbs (11kg) per person per year, unfortunately the bulk of the money spent by the average Briton and American is wasted on mass produced, low grade high fat, high sugar products. On the other hand, the Swiss spend their money far more wisely, as anyone who has tasted Swiss chocolate will testify, but you don't have to go to Switzerland to get good Chocolate! Aphrodite chocolates are made from only the finest quality Coverture:70%+ cocoa solids for plain Dark Chocolate40%+ cocoa solids for Milk Chocolate33%+ chocolate butter for White Chocolate and finest natural ingredients with little or no added sugar.