White Chocolate

About

White chocolate is made from cocoa butter, milk, sugar, and vanilla, and differences between brands largely come down to the quantity and quality of these four ingredients, with vanilla almost always the dominant flavor. Cocoa butter has a strong but not always pleasant taste, so most manufacturers deodorize it, a process that also suppresses some desirable flavor along with it; light roasting of the beans is one way around this. The Venezuelan brand El Rey does not deodorize its cocoa butter, and its 34-percent-cocoa-butter bar, less sweet and more intensely chocolatey than most, is often considered among the best-tasting on the market. Green & Black's white chocolate, by contrast, is heavy with vanilla seeds and tastes like a rich vanilla ice cream with hints of strawberry and apricot brandy, illustrating how white chocolate benefits from sour, balancing flavors.

Pairs well with white chocolate

• CiLemonGood white chocolate often carries a natural lemon character, which makes the pairing work well in layered cakes combining white…
• WoAlmondWhite chocolate's high sweetness, from lacking the balancing bitterness of cocoa solids, is tempered well by roasted almonds-a combination…
• RoChocolateNearly all chocolate, dark and milk included, contains some vanilla, which is white chocolate's dominant flavor.
• CrCoconutA coconut cake iced with thick white chocolate frosting is intensely rich and sweet; raspberries can help cut through it.
• RoCoffeeCoffee combined with white chocolate's rich dairy character can read as overly similar to fudgy café au lait made with UHT milk, a style…
• FrPineappleWhite chocolate pairs well with red berries but also with tropical fruit, similar to how pineapple and passion fruit notes complement…
• BrOliveChocolatier Vosges makes a white chocolate bar studded with dried kalamata olive, following the same logic as other sweet-salty chocolate…
• CiCardamomA cardamom-infused white chocolate bar recalls the flavor of sweet, spiced, milky Indian desserts like kheer and kulfi.
• GrSaffronSaffron-flavored white chocolate is made by at least one specialty chocolatier; white chocolate is said to draw out saffron's hay-like…