White Chocolate
Although it is not nearly as popular as milk chocolate or dark chocolate, white chocolate has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity after years of living in the shadow of its darker cousin. White chocolate is gracing our bakeries, candy stores and favorite confections. Popular pairings of white chocolate include white chocolate and macadamia nuts, white chocolate and strawberries, and white chocolate and dark chocolate. If you go into a specialty bakery, you can even find white chocolate covered dog biscuits (unlike dark chocolate, white chocolate is perfectly safe for dogs, more on that later). While related in many ways to darker chocolate, white chocolate has a history and place in our kitchens and stomachs all of its own.
From a technical standpoint, white chocolate is not really a chocolate at all. This is because it is not made with any cocoa solids. However, despite that technicality, White chocolate is indeed another derivative, just like regular chocolate, of the cocoa plant. The cocoa plant is native to South America and chocolate was first consumed by the ancient Olmec Civilization in Central America nearly 1000 years before the birth of Christ. Over the years, chocolate became a luxury for the rich, and then a staple in the kitchen as the cost of the product came down during the Industrial Revolution.
