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If you thought the chocolate world was all sweet, you were wrong.

A fourth kind of chocolate – “blond” – has slowly been making inroads into the French confectionary world, but the Swiss are bitter about the new choc on the block, refusing to recognise the French alternative to their own pink chocolate.

Chocolate has only had three ‘official’ kinds for a while now – dark, milk and pink – so when French pastry chef Frederic Bau created ‘blond’ chocolate, it sparked outrage.

Blond chocolate was born from an accident after Bau was demonstrating his skills at an exhibition in Japan, and left his white chocolate warming a little too long in a bain-marie… four days, to be precise.

“By chance, by magic… it became blonde! This chocolate appeared with incredible colour and smell”, recalls Bau, who is the creative director for chocolatier Valrhona.

Bau immediately smelled the commercial potential of his sweet mistake, but it took seven years of testing to perfect its unique aromatic qualities and consistency. The recipe remains a secret but has been officially registered by Valrhona, and is sold under the name Dulcey.

The basic chemistry of blond chocolate is not a mystery. It is the “Maillard reaction”, a sequence of chemical reactions between amino acids and reducing sugars, causing browning and unique aromas. Taste-wise, blond chocolate has the milky fatty taste of white chocolate but is much less sweet, with a soft caramel flavour and an aftertaste of roasted coffee.

French pastry chefs however snub white chocolate, which they liken to the home-made slabs they gobbled as children. But blond chocolate is neither white, dark, nor pink, opening up a new category.

“It’s very different from other chocolates. It gives a very biscuity, very delicious taste,” Nice-based pastry chef Philippe Tayac told AFP, who combines it with hazelnuts for a tartlet.

Bau suggests combining it as a dessert “with freshly roasted apples and a Tahitian vanilla cream”, and he also recommends “breaking it up” with more distinct fruity combinations, such as citrus or red fruit.

Despite efforts, Valrhona has not yet managed to convince French lawmakers, and the Swiss, to rethink its legal definitions. So, blond officially remains just another type of white chocolate – the last to be legally recognised after its invention in the 1930s by the Swiss.

Chocolatiers seem a clique bunch. Let the blond into the club.

[source:yahoo]