Who Invented Chocolate

Who Invented Chocolate

The quest to learn who invented chocolate means exploring the fascinating history of chocolate. Most people credit the Aztecs with inventing chocolate. However, the first people to discover chocolate dates back even further to the Olmecs.

The Olmec are the oldest people known to have lived in the Eastern area of Mexico. During the years of 1500-400 BC the Olmecs drank a bittersweet drink they made from ground cacao beans.

In later years both the Mayans and Aztecs made a frothy hot drink by crushing cacao beans and mixing it with spices. Since they did not know about sugar, this drink was nothing like the chocolates we enjoy today. The word chocolate comes from the Maya word "xocoatl" meaning bitter water.

History of Chocolate The Aztecs treasured the cacao bean so much that they used them as currency. When Hernando Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519, he did not like the bitter tasting drink. However, he took some of the beans back to Spain in 1528. Mixed with cane sugar, vanilla, and other spices this new drink became popular with the Spanish nobility.

Eventually chocolate spread throughout Europe. People found ways to include chocolate in cakes, pastries, and sorbets.

The modern chocolate bar is due to an invention in 1828 by Dutch chocolate maker, Conrad J. Van Houten. He developed a press that could produce a fine cocoa powder. By combining this cocoa with sugar and cocoa butter, a solid bar was created.

Milk chocolate lovers can thank Daniel Peter, a Swiss chocolate manufacturer, for the invention of milk chocolate. In 1875 he began selling the first milk chocolate bar created by adding powdered milk to chocolate.

The use of chocolate has spread so that chocolate can be found everywhere in all shapes and sizes served in creative and novel ways. Chocolate Easter bunnies, chocolate fountains, chocolate beverages, chocolate fondue, chocolate cakes, pies, cookies, candies and just about anything else you can imagine!

Who Invented Chocolate

Who Invented Chocolate?

Who Invented Chocolate

No one person can claim the credit as the inventor of chocolate

The inventor of chocolate as we know it today is not a single person. The Olmec, Mayan and Aztec civilizations of early Mesoamerica can claim the credit for discovering cocoa beans, which are the main ingredient of chocolate. They ground the beans and mixed them with chile and water to make the world's first chocolate drink.

Then along came Christopher Columbus several hundred years later. He brought cocoa beans back to Europe in the early 1500s. Chocolate drinks soon became popular across Spain, but the rest of Europe wouldn't get to enjoy this treat until nearly 100 years later.

Even then, not everyone could afford chocolate. The first chocolate house in London, The Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll, opened in 1657, but the price of the chocolate drinks meant that only the upper class could enjoy this new beverage.

However, chocolate was becoming popular in other ways, too. By 1674, it had become an ingredient used in cakes and rolls.

Then in 1732, Monsieur Dubuisson invented a table mill to grind chocolate, which made This was followed by the invention of a steam engine to

The spread and production of chocolate reached another milestone in 1732, when Monsieur Dubuisson of France invented a table mill that could grind chocolate. This was followed in 1795 by Josephy Fry's invention of a steam engine for grinding the beans, which allowed chocolate to be manufactured on a much larger scale.

In addition to inventing the steam engine, Fry also later became the inventor of the world's first chocolate bar in 1847. His company, Fry & Sons, would later merge with chocolate giant Cadbury, which says on their website, "by today's standards, these original chocolate bars would not be considered very palatable."

Other individuals who helped chocolate along its way to worldwide popularity included:

- Conrad van Houten, who invented a hydraulic press in 1829 that extracted the fat from the cacao beans to create powder in a process that is known today as "Dutching."

- Daniel Peters of Switzerland, who produced the first milk chocolate bar in 1875

- Rudolphe Lindt, who invented a process in 1878 called "conching," which improved chocolate by making it more blendable

Thanks to all these inventors of chocolate, this delicious treat is now found all over the world in a variety of flavors, shapes and sizes, and celebrated in movies, books and TV.

Chocolate - it's an invention we can all love!

Who Invented Chocolate

Who Invented Chocolate Chip Cookies?

Who Invented Chocolate

The invention of chocolate chip cookies is often credited to Ruth Wakefield. With her husband, Wakefield ran the Tollhouse Inn in Massachusetts. The common story goes that Wakefield, who often made food for her guests, decided to make a chocolate butter cookie but didn’t have enough chocolate bars to produce one. Instead she chopped up the bars and added them to the butter cookie recipe.

The chocolate chip cookies were an immediate success, and became known as Tollhouse cookies. They became so popular, that Nestles Chocolate Company purchased the recipe with the rights to print the recipe on its semi-sweet chocolate bars. In exchange, Wakefield received free chocolate for life. At that point there still were not chips in chocolate chip cookies, but instead the cookies had chunks of chopped chocolate.

Nestles had some popularity with the Wakefield’s chocolate chip cookies, but the recipe became far easier to follow when in 1939 Nestles developed the standard chocolate chip, called a chocolate morsel. This easier way of combining the chocolate made chocolate chip cookies the most popular cookie in the US.

Today, numerous companies make chocolate chips, and many cooks favor one type of chips over another. Some chocolate chip cookies are considered substandard if they use a chip made with artificial vanilla, called vanillin. Others are quite happy with chocolate chips made with artificial vanilla.

The original recipe for chocolate chip cookies is still printed on Nestles' bags. Most other chocolate chips have some form of the recipe on them, though they have to make slight changes so as not to infringe on Nestles' copyright privileges. This can be easily accomplished, however, and most recipes are roughly identical.

Wakefield’s chocolate chip cookies were made with butter, and always included walnuts. Chocolate chip cookies are now often made with margarine, and may not include nuts. In fact in 1992 Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton had a bake-off in Family Circle to see who made the best chocolate chip cookies. Clinton’s used margarine, and Bush stuck to butter.

Both varieties were praised but were distinctly different. Bush’s cookies were favored in the first taste groups, but Clinton’s were more popular at restaurants. The fate of the election clearly didn’t hang on cookie popularity, however, since Clinton’s husband won the election.

Variants in today’s chips can produce many different cookies, with different flavored chips. White chocolate or peanut butter chips are popular. M&Ms are also a favorite addition. Chocolate chips can be larger or smaller than Nestles Morsels and may be semi-sweet, milk chocolate or bittersweet.

Who Invented Chocolate