Chocolate That Won’t Melt

You bet this caught my attention:

S.O. Ogunwolu and C.O. Jayeola, food scientists at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, have mixed cornstarch with cocoa to produce a heat-resistant chocolate that they say compares “favorably with conventional milk chocolate in terms of color, taste, smoothness and overall acceptability.”

The starch acts as a chocolate thickener and prevents the outflow of cocoa butter—the natural fat of the cocoa bean—when the heat is on. The researchers found that using 10 percent starch was ideal and produced a product that was comparable to milk chocolate in taste tests.

Doesn’t begin to melt until 122 degrees. Yeah, yum-yum, I bet. Probably feels like a rock in the stomach. There are several reasons why chocolate is so special and one of them is it melts well below body temperature. I’ve heard jokes about a candy maker that mixes cement into his chocolate. That’d work, too, yeah it would.

Considering the researchers are in a country closer to the Equator than the Tropic of Cancer, I guess it might make sense. A climate fit to grow some of the best beans in the world but impossible to carry your chocolates from the store to the house without a cooler. Another plus for Buffalo’s weather!