A chocolate bar is a confection containing chocolate, which may also contain layerings or mixtures that include nuts, fruit, caramel, nougat, and wafers. A flat and easily partitionable chocolate bar is also called a tablet. In some varieties of English and food labeling standards, the term chocolate bar is reserved for bars of solid chocolate, with candy bar used for products with additional ingredients.
The manufacture of a chocolate bar from raw cocoa ingredients requires many steps, from grinding and refining, to conching and tempering. While the grinding of cocoa beans is an ancient Mesoamerican practice, the subsequent processes were independently developed by chocolate manufacturers in different European countries. There is therefore no precise moment when the first chocolate bar came into existence. Solid chocolate was already consumed in the 18th century. The 19th century saw the emergence of the modern chocolate industry; most manufacturing techniques used today were invented during this period.
Dark, milk and white are the main three types of chocolate. Ingredients not derived from cocoa have been added to bars since the beginning of the chocolate industry, often to reduce production costs.
Terminology In many varieties of English, chocolate bar refers to any confectionery bar that contains chocolate. In some dialects of American English, only bars of solid chocolate are described as chocolate bars, with the phrase candy bar used as a broader term encompassing bars of solid chocolate, bars combining chocolate with other ingredients, and bars containing no chocolate at all. In Canada, while the term chocolate bar is commonly used for bars combining chocolate with other ingredients, only bars of solid chocolate can be labelled as a chocolate bar.
The term bar may refer to a large variety of shapes, including not oblong ones, such as squares. Small (bite-sized) chocolate pieces are however usually referred to as chocolates, regardless of shape. These include neapolitans, bonbons, pralines and truffles.
Cake chocolate is an old commercial designation for solid chocolate.
History
Early history
Solid chocolate was probably already consumed in pre-Columbian America, in particular by the Aztecs, despite the beverage being the traditional form of consumption of cocoa in Mesoamerica. In fact, any finely ground cocoa that is not immediately used to make a drink turns into solid chocolate. The grinding of the cocoa beans was done with a stone metate. Dominican friar Diego Durán mentions in his writings that Aztec soldiers carried small balls of ground cocoa among other military rations. Cocoa was introduced into Europe in the early 16th century, possibly already under its processed (solid) form.
Until the 18th century, chocolate was essentially consumed as a drink. Transport of cocoa beans was slow and difficult, therefore making the product very expensive in Europe. Chocolate was usually sold as a solidified ground but still grainy cocoa paste (in the form of blocks, sticks or balls) to be dissolved in water or milk, either plain or already sweetened and flavoured. It is unclear when bars or tablets of chocolate (meant to be eaten straight as a candy rather than grated into a drink) were made for the first time. It is known, however, that the consumption of solid chocolate by the wealthy increased by the end of the 18th century, notably in the form of pastilles ("drops"). Sweetened preparations more likely to be consumed on their own or used in confectionery included French chocolate, flavored with vanilla, and Spanish chocolate, flavored with cinnamon. Cane sugar, another colonial commodity, was widely used in Europe by the 18th century.
The production of chocolate specifically meant to be eaten in bars may predate the French Revolution. The Marquis de Sade wrote to his wife in a letter dated May 16, 1779, complaining about the quality of a care package he had received while in prison. Among the requests that he made for future deliveries were for cookies that "must smell of chocolate, as if one were biting into a chocolate bar." This phrasing is highly suggestive of chocolate bars being eaten by themselves and not just grated into chocolate-based drinks. Another illustration is given by a contemporary encyclopedia, which mentions "bonbons", "diablotins", "chocolate-covered pistachios" and "white chocolate". However, at the time, chocolate was still ground by hand and produced in small quantities.
Up to and including the 19th century, confectionery of all sorts was typically sold in small pieces to be bagged and bought by weight. The introduction of chocolate as something that could be eaten as is, rather than used to make beverages or desserts, resulted in the earliest bar forms, or tablets. At some point, chocolates came to mean any chocolate-covered sweets, whether nuts, creams (fondant), caramel candies, or others. The chocolate bar evolved from all of these in the late-19th century as a way of packaging and selling candy more conveniently for both buyer and seller; however, the buyer had to pay for the packaging. It was considerably cheaper to buy candy loose, or in bulk.
Industrialisation
The late 18th century saw the beginning of the mechanization of chocolate manufacturing. Water and wind power was used first, steam-powered machines followed. This not only enabled chocolate to be produced on a larger scale but also improved its quality. Among the pioneers were Joseph Storrs Fry, who patented a method of grinding cocoa beans using a Watt steam engine in 1795, and Poincelet, who invented the melanger in 1811, soon adopted by most chocolate manufacturers. Roller mills, initially consisting of two cylindrical rolls and later incorporating three or more, also began to be used around this time. The combined use of melangers and roller mills enabled the production of sweet chocolate with a more homogeneous texture.
In the early 19th century, several chocolate manufacturers are credited for technical improvements or novelties. François-Louis Cailler, who founded the Cailler factory in 1819 in Switzerland, sold assortments of chocolate tablets. Shortly after, in 1826, another Swiss chocolatier, Philippe Suchard, founded the Suchard factory where he used and developed the melanger. The same year, Pierre Paul Caffarel founded the Caffarel factory in Italy, using a new grinding machine, also allowing him to increase production. During that decade, in England, Fry & Sons introduced chocolate lozenges as a "substitute for food when travelling".
1828 marked a breakthrough for both eating and drinking chocolate: Casparus van Houten patented an effective method for pressing the fat from roasted cocoa beans. The centre of the bean, known as the "nib", contains an average of 54 percent cocoa butter. Van Houten's machine – the hydraulic cocoa press – reduced the cocoa butter content by nearly half. This not only allowed the creation of defatted cocoa powder (to be used for chocolate drinks), but also the creation of pure cocoa butter on a large scale. The additional cocoa butter (mixed with cocoa liquor and sugar) would allow the production of chocolate with a higher fluidity, therefore with a higher moldability into more complex shapes. It is not known when the first chocolate with added cocoa butter was manufactured. However, in 1832, the first workshop for producing chocolate moulds opened in Paris, testifying to the increasing use of chocolate in confectionery, especially in France.
An American magazine reported in 1836 that small, sweetened chocolate bars had become popular in France because of their nutritional value and portability. At the time, chocolate was still typically manufactured without sugar in the United States and Great Britain, while sweetened chocolate had already become established in continental Europe. There, the industry also benefited from the introduction of domestically produced beet sugar, which eventually supplanted cane sugar in European confections.
In the 1830s, French pharmacist Antoine Brutus Menier, who first used chocolate as a coating for pills, developed a chocolate factory in Noisiel. In 1836, a yellow-wrapped chocolate tablet with six semi-cylindrical divisions is launched, possibly already using additional cocoa butter. By the 1840s the production of a wide variety of chocolate bars and bonbons is attested. Semi-finished products like finely ground cocoa liquor and cocoa butter were also sold by Menier. Menier's tablets bore a trademark to protect them from counterfeits. By the 1860s, production reached 2,500 tonnes, a quarter of the country’s total output, much of it exported.
French chocolate was commonly moulded into 125- and 250-gram tablets, or into smaller croquettes (disk-shaped) and bâtons ("sticks") for eating and individually wrapped. Pralines and creams were among the most popular chocolate confections. Couverture chocolate was also used to coat confections by the 1850s. French assortments dominated the confectionery market until the emergence of milk chocolate in the 1890s.
While almonds had long been established in European confectionery, notably in the form of praline and nougat, hazelnuts also began to be used in chocolate-making by the mid-nineteenth century, particularly in Italy and subsequently in Switzerland. Both Caffarel and Kohler are credited with contributing to the introduction of hazelnut chocolate. Gianduja, first developed in Turin and made with regionally grown hazelnuts, even emerged as a distinctive type of chocolate before the invention of milk chocolate and became particularly popular throughout Europe.
In the 1840s, British manufacturers adopted eating chocolate to counter the popularity of French imports. In 1842, John Cadbury sold "French Eating Chocolate". He was followed by Joseph Fry who sold Chocolat Délicieux à Manger ("delicious eating chocolate") in 1847. The latter, probably made with additional cocoa butter, is often considered the first modern chocolate bar, although it was not successful. In 1849, both Fry and Cadbury chocolates were displayed publicly at a trade fair in Bingley Hall, Birmingham. Meanwhile, the Walter Baker company introduced sweetened chocolate bars during the California gold rush, popularising chocolate as an everyday food in the United States.
Fry's chocolate factory in Bristol, J. S. Fry & Sons, began the mass-production of various chocolate candies, notably Fry's Cream Sticks released in 1853, which led to the Fry's Chocolate Cream bar in 1866. The production of eating chocolate rose from about 10 tonnes in 1852 to over 1,100 tonnes in 1880; a Van Houten press was acquired and installed in 1868, two years after its competitor, Cadbury, installed his. Novelties included the first chocolate Easter egg in the UK in 1873. In addition to Cadbury and Fry, Rowntree's and Terry's were major British chocolate companies, as chocolate manufacturing expanded in England throughout the rest of the century.Design, SUMO. "History of York." Rowntree & Co: Chocolate Manufacturers:. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2016.
In 1860, the German confectionery company Stollwerck began producing chocolate. It became one of the largest chocolate manufacturers, perhaps offering the widest assortment of chocolate products in the 1880s. In 1887, the company installed its first chocolate vending machines. By 1890, 18 million chocolate bars had been sold through vending machines alone. The vending-machine network also extended to the United States. In the 1890s, North American companies such as Ganong Bros. and Lowney's also manufactured and sold assortments of chocolates. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, which showcased chocolate manufacturers and chocolate-making equipment, would further encourage the adoption of chocolate in confectionery across North America.