Blonde Chocolate, a delicious treat created by mistake

3 min read

2 years ago Robin

The so-called “blonde chocolate” has yet to reach the popularity of its counterparts milk, dark, and white chocolate, but it is already recognized as one of the most ingenious variations of white chocolate ever made.

Its history can be traced back to the year 2004, when French pastry chef Frederic Bau was busy showing off his skills during an exhibition in Japan.
Apparently he got so carried away during the show that he left his regular white chocolate melting in a bain-marie for four days.
When he finally got back to it, the chocolate had become a pale brown and had a very distinct smell and flavor.
In addition to its caramel-like color, this new creation had the milky smoothness of white chocolate, but also butterscotch, toffee, and shortbread-tasting notes, as well as a distinct aftertaste of roasted coffee.
As a result, Frederic Bau quickly recognized the potential of his discovery, and blonde chocolate was born.
Our pastry chef knew he was on to something the moment he tasted blonde chocolate for the first time, but because it was technically the result of an accident, a mistake, there was no way to reproduce the result, at least not immediately.
And so he spent the next seven years experimenting and perfecting the process, to ensure he produced the best blonde chocolate every time.
Either way, now we know that blonde chocolate was created when white chocolate left in a bain-marie for too long underwent a chemical process known as the “Maillard reaction”.
The Maillard reaction is similar to caramelisation: both involve a chemical reaction that browns the ingredients at hand. However, while caramelisation only impacts sugars, the Maillard reaction involves amino acids.

Since 2012, blonde chocolate has been sold by French chocolatier Vlrhona under the name Dulcey, even though it has made quite an impression among chocolate lovers in the years since, blonde chocolate is still not a mainstream dessert, partly because French lawmakers refuse to recognize the sweet treat as a fourth type of chocolate, instead deeming it a variation of traditional white chocolate.

And so…is blonde chocolate considered real chocolate?
Some variations of chocolate have a bit of a question mark over them when it comes to official marketing and categorising.
According to UK legislation, to be marketed as ‘chocolate,’ a product must contain a minimum of 35% cocoa solids, (including at least 18% cocoa butter and 14% non-fat cocoa solids).
So what about white chocolate?
After all, it contains no cacao solids, only cacao butter. Well, to be labelled as white chocolate in the UK, a product must contain at least 20% cocoa butter and 14% dry milk solids.
Because blonde chocolate uses white chocolate as its base, it is officially white chocolate but technically not chocolate.
But it’s really delicious!

Blonde chocolate shares a similar story with another unique treat, Ruby chocolate, the naturally pink chocolate made with unfermented or lightly fermented cacao beans that turn a vivid purple during the chocolate-making process.
Although in 2017 it was even dubbed “the biggest innovation in chocolate in 80 years”, but it is still not officially recognized as chocolate.