Have you ever wondered why vanilla is listed as an ingredient on many chocolate bars?

The answer is vanilla has magical qualities! Vanilla makes other food taste sweet, although it is not itself sweet.

Vanilla can be an amazing addition to milk and white chocolate -- but a potential “red light” warning if on the ingredient list of a dark chocolate.

A recent Cocoa Runners blog says:

'Vanilla is different. Adding vanilla changes our perception of “mouth feel” (adding creaminess), reduces the perception of acidity and indeed for many of us makes a food or drink seem “sweeter”. As a flavouring it almost seems to act as a “taste” like salt or umami (msg) in changing, and revealing, different aspects of foods and drinks. Indeed, this really is the "magic" of vanilla.’

Impact of vanilla on chocolate

It is not surprising that some chocolate makers use vanilla to add additional perceptions of sweetness and creamy mouthfeel to their chocolate bars. Vanilla will enhance the milk's creaminess and accentuate other inclusions and additives.

However, with dark chocolate it becomes far more controversial.

Mass produced chocolate is all about consistency and price. And vanilla flavouring will create consistent flavour and mouthfeel. Also, it can smooth over any issues with bean or roast quality. So, it’s well suited to the mass chocolates approach of nib roasting (as opposed to bean roasting). That is why many “luxury” supermarket dark chocolate bars will list on their ingredients “natural vanilla flavouring”.

In contrast, craft makers of dark chocolate want to create a “sensory wave” where different aromas and flavours will emerge as you savour the bar. High quality craft chocolate makers, like Charley’s, don’t want, or need, to cover up the flavours they are working to reveal.

Because we make our single origin chocolate to the same recipe (70% cocoa and 30% sugar) the flavour of the different beans will come through. 

Charley’s does NOT use vanilla. 

Shop our range of Single Origin Dark Chocolate here