Pure Chocolate

Pure chocolate, also referred to as bitter, baking, or unsweetened chocolate, contains only chocolate liquor, also called cacao (cocoa solids and cocoa butter), and flavorings. Depending on the variety of the cacao bean used, 50 to 58 percent (53 percent is the average) of the chocolate liquor is cocoa butter. Most of the remainder is the cocoa solids. (This is the same amount present in chocolate nibs, the name for cacao beans after the pod is removed and before processing.) It may contain flavorings such as vanilla or vanillin (synthesized vanilla). This is why Scharffen Berger, for example, labels its bitter chocolate as 99 percent cacao.