chocolate is made by fermenting, roasting, shelling, and then crushing cocoa beans to produce "nibs," which are about 50 percent cocoa butter. The nibs are then ground and pressed into a paste called chocolate liquor.unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor. Depending on the amount of sugar added, the liquor becomes bittersweet (a common European term), semisweet (a common American term, also known as plain chocolate), or sweet chocolate. milk chocolate is a mixture of chocolate liquor, sugar, and milk solids. it has a creamier flavor than bittersweet or semiseet chocolate. white chocolate, despite its name, is made from cocoa butter, sugar, and milk soilds. it is not considered chocolate at all because it lacks the key defining element, chocolate liquor. cocoa powder is made by removing most of the cocoa butter from chocolate liquor and the grinding the solid liqour to a powder, which is generally unsweetened. when the powder is treated with an alkali, it is known as dutch-process cocoa powder and is darker and less acidic that regular cocoa powder. recipes in this book use dutch-process cocoa powder.