What Is Dark Chocolate? Definition, Cacao Percentage and Uses

Short answer: dark chocolate is chocolate made from cocoa liquor, or cocoa butter with cocoa powder, plus a sweetener, with little or no milk. In Canada, "dark", "bittersweet", "semi-sweet" and plain "chocolate" share one standard: at least 35% total cocoa solids, of which at least 18% is cocoa butter and at least 14% fat-free cocoa solids, and less than 5% milk solids. The percentage on the label is the total cocoa solids; the rest is the sweetener and any minor ingredients.

What you need dark chocolate for	Product	Price
Ganache, mousse, glazes, hot chocolate	FCH 55% dark chocolate minibars, Venezuela, 10 kg	$299.00 CAD
Breads, croissants, brioche	FCH 55% dark chocolate sticks, 2.27 kg	$62.50 CAD
Cookies, brownies, chocolate bark	Organic dark chocolate chips 70%, 1 kg	$45.95 CAD
Single-origin bonbons, tablets, entremets	Bassan Sur del Lago 71% dark couverture, 5 kg	$273.00 CAD
Raising the cacao percentage without adding sugar	Natural cocoa liquor wafers, 100% Peruvian cocoa, 1 kg	$29.99 CAD

What is dark chocolate? The definition

Dark chocolate is defined by law, not by taste. Canada's food compositional standard gives one definition for "chocolate", "bittersweet chocolate", "semi-sweet chocolate" and "dark chocolate": cocoa liquor, cocoa liquor with cocoa butter, or cocoa butter with cocoa powder, combined with a sweetening ingredient. It may also contain less than 5% milk solids, spices, flavouring (other than flavourings that imitate chocolate or milk) and salt. The United States and the European Union also set a 35% minimum, measured slightly differently (see the table).

Rule	Canada	United States	European Union
Names covered	Chocolate, bittersweet, semi-sweet, dark chocolate	Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate	Chocolate
Minimum cocoa	35% total cocoa solids	35% chocolate liquor	35% total dry cocoa solids
Of which cocoa butter	At least 18%	Not set separately	At least 18%
Of which fat-free cocoa solids	At least 14%	Not set separately	At least 14%
Milk	Less than 5% total milk solids	Less than 12% total milk solids (sweet chocolate rule)	Not set in the chocolate definition

What the cacao percentage means

The percentage is the share of everything that comes from the cocoa bean: cocoa liquor plus any added cocoa butter or cocoa powder. A published research recipe for a 60% dark chocolate shows the arithmetic: 45% cocoa liquor plus 15% cocoa butter makes 60% cocoa content, and the other 40% is sugar (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024).

Two chocolates with the same percentage can still behave differently. The standard only sets minimums for cocoa butter and fat-free cocoa solids, so one 70% chocolate can carry more cocoa butter and another more fat-free cocoa solids. Research on dark chocolate found that viscosity falls as the fat content rises (Afoakwa et al., 2008, as cited by Guckenbiehl et al., 2024), so the one with more cocoa butter will usually flow more easily. For a full explanation, read what chocolate percentages really mean.

Dark, milk and white chocolate compared

The difference is how much cocoa and how much milk each one must contain. The Canadian standard:

Type	Total cocoa solids	Cocoa butter	Fat-free cocoa solids	Milk
Dark chocolate	At least 35%	At least 18%	At least 14%	Less than 5% milk solids
Milk chocolate	At least 25%	At least 15%	At least 2.5%	At least 12% milk solids and 3.39% milk fat
White chocolate	Not set	At least 20%	Not set	At least 14% milk solids and 3.5% milk fat

What is in dark chocolate

A dark chocolate ingredient list is short. Our FCH 55% dark chocolate, for example, lists cocoa liquor, cocoa fat, sugar and soy lecithin. Each part has a job:

• Cocoa liquor (cocoa mass): the ground cocoa nib, with not less than 50% cocoa butter under the Canadian standard.
• Cocoa butter: the fat of the bean; more of it makes the chocolate flow more easily. Read more in our guide to buying cocoa butter in Canada.
• Sugar: the sweetening ingredient; the higher the cacao percentage, the less room is left for it.
• Emulsifier, flavouring, salt: optional, depending on the recipe.

The cocoa solids also bring theobromine and caffeine: in non-fat cocoa bean solids they are about 4% and 0.2% of dry weight, and the amounts vary with fermentation and bean type (Barišić et al., 2019). See does dark chocolate have caffeine?

How dark chocolate is made

Dark chocolate goes from bean to bar in a fixed order (Barišić et al., 2019):

Step	What happens	Read more
Fermentation and drying	Forms the flavour precursors that later steps need	Our cacao beans
Roasting	Maillard reactions form aroma compounds	How to roast cacao beans
Grinding and refining	Nibs become cocoa liquor; sugar and cocoa butter are mixed in and the particle size is reduced	What is chocolate liquor
Conching	Coats the particles with fat, removes moisture and volatile acids, sets the viscosity	What is conching
Tempering	Forms stable, consistently sized cocoa butter crystals	How to temper chocolate

Semi-sweet vs bittersweet: is there a difference?

Not in the rules. In Canada, semi-sweet, bittersweet and dark chocolate share one standard, and in the United States semisweet and bittersweet share the same 35% chocolate liquor minimum. Because the rules do not separate them, compare the cacao percentage and the ingredient list instead of the name.

What is dark chocolate good for?

In the kitchen, what a dark chocolate is good for depends on its format and percentage. The product data of the dark chocolates we sell maps each to its job:

Dark chocolate	Recommended uses (product data)
FCH 55%, Venezuelan Trinitario, minibars	Coating fillings, moulding inclusions, airbrush spraying, glazes, ganaches, mousse, sponge cakes, baking creams, ice cream, hot chocolate
FCH 55% sticks, 5 g each (about 450 per 2.27 kg)	Breads, croissants, brioches
Organic chips 70%, Peru	Cookies, brownies, cakes, muffins, chocolate bark, coating fruit
Bassan Sur del Lago 71%, made in Canada	Ganaches, moulded bonbons, tablets, entremets, chocolate beverages

For what research says about dark chocolate and health, read is dark chocolate good for you?

View dark chocolate couverture →

Working with dark chocolate: tempering

Every dark chocolate has its own tempering curve, so follow the maker's sheet. FCH gives these working conditions for its 55% dark chocolate:

Step	FCH 55% dark chocolate
Melt	45–50°C (113–122°F)
Crystallisation	28–29°C (82–84°F)
Tempering (working temperature)	31–32°C (88–90°F)

Bassan's Sur del Lago 71% comes with a bilingual technical sheet. For volume work, a tempering machine holds the working temperature for you.

View chocolate tempering machines →

Making your own dark chocolate

To set your own percentage and origin, start from the bean or from cocoa liquor. Sur del Lago cocoa beans, Venezuela → from $80.00 CAD are Trinitario with 10–30% ancestral Criollo lineage, with fruity, woody and nutty notes and low acidity and astringency. Our natural cocoa liquor wafers are 100% Peruvian cocoa mass with no added fat or sugar.

For the theory and recipes, Chocolate by Ramon Morató → $160.00 CAD covers chocolate as a product, confectionery and chocolate making in 416 pages.

How AI can help your production

Give an AI assistant the cacao percentage of each chocolate you stock and ask it to calculate blends: for example, 900 g of a 55% chocolate plus 100 g of 100% cocoa liquor gives 1 kg at 59.5% cocoa solids. Ask it to scale ganache recipes, cost each recipe from your purchase prices, and keep a tempering log per chocolate with its melt, crystallisation and working temperatures.

AI organises the information; tasting and the final decision stay with your chef.

Dark chocolate at Zucchero Canada

From Calgary, we supply dark chocolate for professionals across Canada: FCH 55% Venezuelan minibars and sticks, organic 70% chips, and Bassan's Sur del Lago 71% single-origin couverture, plus cocoa liquor and cacao beans for those who make their own. Food products ship within Canada only. For volume and standing B2B orders, contact our team or call 587-774-8873 (toll free 877-741-8251).

Dark couverture | Cacao beans | Chocolate percentages | What is couverture? | Is dark chocolate good for you?

This article is for information only. Every business is different: draw your own conclusions based on your own expectations, budget and goals, and talk to qualified experts before you decide or invest.

Sources: CFIA, Canadian Food Compositional Standards, Volume 4 (Cocoa and Chocolate Products), 4.1.3, 4.1.6, 4.1.8 and 4.1.9; US 21 CFR 163.123 (sweet, semisweet and bittersweet chocolate); Directive 2000/36/EC, Annex I(A)(3); Barišić V. et al., "The Chemistry behind Chocolate Production", Molecules 24 (2019) 3163; Guckenbiehl Y. et al., Current Research in Food Science 9 (2024) 100909; FCH Origins, Bassan Chocolate and Canada Cacao Co. product data; Vilbo product data (Chocolate, Ramon Morató).