Different types of Chocolates

Baking Chocolate: Unless the chocolate is from a specialty purveyor who specifies that it's for "baking and eating," this type is used for baking items such as brownies, cakes and cookies. Although baking chocolate has an intense flavor, it also may have a lower cocoa-butter content and a less smooth texture than other chocolates, so save it strictly for recipes where it will be combined with other ingredients.

Cocoa Powder: If cocoa powder is treated with an alkali to smooth the flavor, it is called "Dutch process" cocoa. Many cooks prefer Dutch process cocoa for all cooking purposes, including baking, frostings and icings, sauces and chocolate beverages. You also can use cocoa powder in place of baking chocolate by melting one tablespoon unsalted butter with three tablespoons of cocoa for each ounce of baking chocolate required. If you only have nonalkalized cocoa, Nick Malgieri recommends adding a tiny pinch of baking soda to help smooth the flavor.

Couverture Chocolate: This is among the highest quality chocolate. It's the best chocolate to use for candies, such as truffles and dipped chocolates, as well as for molded and shaped chocolates. The high fat content makes an easy job of melting and tempering. This chocolate can be used for any purpose, including eating, but the higher price makes it an extravagant choice for general baking.

Compound Chocolate: Sometimes used instead of expensive couvertures, this contains hard vegetable fat in addition to or instead of cocoa butter. It can be a good choice for coating when making candy in hot weather, but taste before buying. Some look fine but taste like wax.

Eating Chocolate: Anything sold to be enjoyed as a bar. These usually are not suitable for cooking. Some eating chocolates, however--especially imported Swiss or Belgian products--have very high cocoa butter content, making them suitable for use as couverture chocolate.
In general, the darker the chocolate, the more chocolate liquor--from 100% in unsweetened chocolate to 10% for milk chocolate. The darkest suitable chocolate will provide the most chocolate flavor. To be labeled "chocolate," the only fat a product may contain is cocoa butter. Inferior products with labels such as "chocolate candy" may contain other vegetable fats instead.

White Chocolate: Because it doesn't contain any part of the cocoa bean except the fat, white chocolate is not actually chocolate! But white chocolate lovers swear by it for eating and cooking. If you're going to use white chocolate, you should be sure to use a type where the only fat in it is cocoa butter. Labeling rules for chocolate don't apply to white chocolate, so you can wind up with something that is sugar and hard vegetable fat with a little artificial chocolate flavoring if you're not careful.
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