The Redemption of White Chocolate (aka Dominican Republic Caramelized White)

Dominican Republic

What to know about THIS White Chocolate dear cacao voyagers: It is pure as the driven snow, made with only THREE ingredients; natural unfiltered organic cacao butter (still a little bit of cocoa solids offering up light flavor and aromas), caramelized milk to golden perfection and natural raw unprocessed organic cane sugar. THIS IS THE REDEMPTION OF WHITE CHOCOLATE.  Available in the Large 3oz Grand Adventure Bar size and the .40oz Tasting Tiles.

• Origin: Dominican Republic
• Cacao certifications: Fair Trade, Organic
• Flavor notes: Caramel and toffee goodness, dulce de leche, subtle nutty notes, delicate chocolate aromas.
• Ingredients: Organic cacao butter, organic cane sugar, whole milk
• Allergens: Milk

About OTHER "white chocolate": Did you ever wonder why most commercially produced "white chocolate" is so... uhhh... gross? And greasy, waxy or slimey? Take a look at the ingredients and you'll see why. There's all kinds of stuff in commercial "white chocolate" that shouldn't be in there including weird fats and all kinds of unpleasant nasties.  Not a fan.  Super disappointing.  Check out their list of ingredients.  Sometimes it actually says on the package in very small print: "white chocolate flavored".  It really has nothing to do with actual white chocolate.  

So lets also talk about the other white elephant in the chocolate room: That age-old debate about whether or not white chocolate is "real" chocolate. Let's take a look at properly made white chocolate: Cocoa butter, sugar, milk. Maybe vanilla. But that is it, period.  Is it "real" chocolate? You decide: Pretend I am holding up a cacao bean for illustrative purposes. This bean is roughly made up of somewhere between 46% to 58% cocoa butter (depending on genetics) and the rest is cocoa solids. (cacao/cocoa - semantics). When we make dark or milk chocolate, we use the whole bean. And trust me, we want all the cacao butter residing in that bean to go into the chocolate. That is the gold right there. In industrial chocolate processing, the butter is often pressed out leaving a by-product (which is cocoa powder) (and which BTW, still has about 26% butter in it and that's why its sometimes hard to mix into milk or water). The cocoa powder is sold off to make things like cake mixes and other chocolate products. The butter though. That's where the money is. That is sold off for big dollars to the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries (after the cocoa butter has been further filtered and deodorized). Anyway, back to this bean I'm holding up. We are using more than 50% of this bean to make real white chocolate.  It's the same cocoa beans we use to make dark and milk chocolate.  So, I leave this decision up to you - IS white chocolate (the good stuff, I mean), real?