What Makes Milk Chocolate?
A piece of milk chocolate can be smooth and sweet. But what is it made from?
Milk chocolate starts with cocoa seeds. The seeds grow inside large pods on cocoa trees.
After the pods are picked, the seeds are taken out. The seeds are treated and dried. Then they are roasted and ground into a thick paste.
That paste has cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Cocoa solids give chocolate much of its flavor. Cocoa butter is the fat from the seeds.
To make milk chocolate, makers mix cocoa ingredients with milk and sugar. They work the mix until it is smooth.
Then they pour it into molds. As it cools, it becomes firm. It can be made into bars or small pieces.
Milk chocolate and a cocoa drink are not the same thing. Milk chocolate is a solid food. A cocoa drink is a liquid made by mixing cocoa with milk or water. The drink may have sugar, too.
July 28 is National Milk Chocolate Day. It is an informal food observance, or a day when people may notice and talk about a certain food.
A cocoa seed, some cocoa butter, a container of milk, and pieces of chocolate can show where milk chocolate begins. Each has a part in the story of this sweet food.
- pods:
- Parts of a plant that hold seeds.
- treated:
- Prepared by doing something to it.
- dried:
- Made less wet.
- roasted:
- Cooked with heat.
- ground:
- Crushed into very small pieces.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What is the passage mostly about?
- 2Where do cocoa seeds grow?
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About this explanatory article passage for Lower Elementary
“What Makes Milk Chocolate?” is a explanatory article reading passage about Milk chocolate, written for Lower Elementary. It takes about 1 minute to read (216 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.