Compound chocolate is a product made from a combination of cocoa, vegetable fat and sweeteners. It is used as a lower-cost alternative to pure

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...

''(())'' as it uses less-expensive hard vegetable fats such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil in place of the more expensive

cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible Vegetable oil, fat extracted from the cocoa bean (''Theobroma cacao''). It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter h ...

. It may also be known as "compound coating" or "chocolaty coating" when used as a coating for candy. It is often used in less expensive

chocolate bar A chocolate bar is a confection containing chocolate, which may also contain layerings or mixtures that include nut (fruit), nuts, fruit, caramel, nougat, and wafers. A flat, easily breakable, chocolate bar is also called a tablet. In some variet ...

s to replace enrobed chocolate on a product. True chocolate containing cocoa butter must be tempered to maintain gloss of a coating. Compound coatings, however, do not need to be tempered. Instead, they are simply warmed to between above the coating's

melting point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state of matter, state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase (matter), phase exist in Thermodynamic equilib ...

. In the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

a product can only be sold as chocolate if it contains a maximum of 5% vegetable oil.

See also

References

Further reading