Roasting and Cacao Origin Affect the Formation of Volatile Organic Sulfur Compounds in 100% Chocolate.

Chocolate is a highly appreciated food that develops its characteristic flavors in large part during the roasting of cacao beans. Many functional classes have been noted for their importance to chocolate flavor, including volatile organic sulfur compounds (VSCs). Despite this, the effect of roasting on the concentration of VSCs has never been thoroughly assessed.

Optimizing consumer acceptability of 100% chocolate through roasting treatments and effects on bitterness and other important sensory characteristics.

Chocolate is a highly appreciated food around the world which is rich in polyphenols but usually sweetened to mask inherent bitterness and astringency. Here we aim to determine how roast time and temperature in cacao roasting affect bitterness intensity and consumer liking of chocolate. We have also determined the relationship between consumer liking and perceived bitterness, astringency, sourness, sweetness, and cocoa intensity.

Quantitative analysis and response surface modeling of important bitter compounds in chocolate made from cocoa beans with eight roast profiles across three origins.

Eight different roast profiles for each of the three origins of cacao were prepared and made into unsweetened chocolate based upon an I-Optimal response-surface design for minimizing prediction variance. Quantitative chemical analysis of all chocolate treatments was performed with HPLC-DAD on six important bitter compounds (i.e.