What is chocolate compound? Can I use it to make chocolate bars?

Question by cocoahazelnut: What is chocolate compound? Can I use it to make chocolate bars?
I found a recipe online to make chocolate bars. The thing is, it uses milk chocolate. The supermarket I went to didn’t seem to have any bar of cooking chocolate named “milk chocolate”, so I bought “chocolate compound” instead as it looks similar and there’s a chocolate recipe at the back of the package, so I just assumed it’s cooking chocolate by another name. But what is actually chocolate compound? Can I use it to substitute milk or cooking chocolate? Thank you..

Best answer:

Answer by Natalia
Yes you can. Compound chocolate is what is mostly used in cooking and what’s sold at the supermarkets as confectionery. The alternative is ‘couverture’ chocolate and that’s used more for gourmet chocolates and sold in special chocolate shops, at a higher price too. Most recipes when they ask to use chocolate assume it’s just compound chocolate unless otherwise stated.

Compound chocolate is the easiest type of chocolate to use when making chocolate bars. this is because it will set very nicely and quite quickly. When using couverture chocolate, the chocolate needs to be tempered before it will set which basically means it needs to be highly temperature-controlled during melting and cooling down. It can be difficult for some people to temper chocolate so commercial businesses who use couverture will most likely have a machine which will temper. Anyway, it’s not very common for supermarkets to sell couverture and if they did, it would be written very big on the packet. You’re safe.

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