Dark, Milk, White and Ruby: What Separates the Four

Four categories, four different foods. The differences are not just sweetness: they are legally defined ingredient thresholds that determine how each one melts, burns, sets and behaves in a recipe. If you have ever had white chocolate seize on you or wondered why a milk chocolate ganache came out soupy, the answer is in this table.

What is in each one

	Cocoa solids	Cocoa butter	Milk solids	Sugar
Dark	Yes, the defining component	Yes	None or trace	25 to 50%
Milk	Yes, less of it	Yes	12% minimum in the US	40 to 55%
White	None	20% minimum in the US	14% minimum	Up to 55%
Ruby	Yes, from specially processed beans	Yes	Yes	40 to 50%

Those US minimums are not industry convention, they are federal standards of identity. The full definitions for sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate and the rest sit in 21 CFR Part 163. A product that misses a threshold has to be labelled something else, which is why you see phrases like "chocolatey coating" and "confectionery coating" on cheap moulded novelties: those typically substitute vegetable fat for cocoa butter and cannot be sold as chocolate.

Dark

Cocoa mass, sugar, usually extra cocoa butter, often a trace of lecithin and vanilla. Nothing else is required. The absence of milk means it is the most heat-tolerant of the four in the kitchen, the most bitter, and the longest keeping, because there is no milk fat to oxidise. It is also the most revealing: with only two significant ingredients, there is nowhere for a poor bean to hide.

Percentages run from about 50% to 100%. Our explainer on what the percentage actually means is worth reading before you assume higher equals better.

Milk

Adding milk solids does three things at once. Milk fat softens the set and lowers the melting range, milk proteins mask astringency, and lactose adds a rounded background sweetness distinct from sucrose. The result melts sooner in the mouth, scorches sooner in the pan, and needs a lower tempering curve.

The gap between mass-market milk chocolate near the 10% liquor minimum and a craft 45% milk bar is enormous. If your only reference point is a checkout-aisle bar, a high-percentage milk chocolate is the most pleasant surprise in the category.

White

No cocoa solids means no cocoa flavour, no dark colour, and no antioxidant content worth discussing. What you taste is cocoa butter, dairy and sugar. Good white chocolate tastes of cream, vanilla and a faint nuttiness from the cocoa butter itself; bad white chocolate tastes of sugar and wax.

Practically, white is the most fragile. It scorches above roughly 45 C, its high sugar content makes it seize instantly on contact with water, and its low melting range means it will not hold up in a warm room. In ganache it needs two to three times the chocolate weight to cream because there are no cocoa solids providing structure.

Ruby

Ruby chocolate was launched commercially in 2017 by the Swiss manufacturer Barry Callebaut and is made from beans selected and processed to preserve certain precursors, producing a naturally pink colour and a tart, berryish flavour with no added fruit or colourant. Its regulatory position varies by market: the US permitted it initially under a temporary marketing permit rather than as a new standard of identity, and elsewhere it is often labelled as a variant of white chocolate with cocoa solids added. Background on the product and its introduction is summarised on its Wikipedia entry.

In use it behaves close to white chocolate: low melting range, acid-sensitive, easily scorched. Its tartness makes it a genuinely interesting pairing with raspberry and yuzu, and a poor pairing with anything already sour.

Behaviour cheat sheet

	Temper working temp	Scorches at	Ganache ratio (rolled truffle)	Keeps
Dark	31 to 32 C	Above 50 C	2 : 1	12 to 24 months
Milk	29 to 30 C	Above 45 C	2.5 : 1	8 to 12 months
White	28 to 29 C	Above 43 C	3 : 1	6 to 9 months
Ruby	28 to 29 C	Above 43 C	3 : 1	6 to 9 months

Full method in our guide to tempering at home, and the ratio arithmetic in the ganache calculator.

What about compound coating and couverture?

Two more words worth knowing. Couverture is chocolate with a high cocoa butter content, typically 32% or more, formulated to flow thinly and set with a good snap. It is what chocolatiers use for dipping and moulding and what you should buy for tempering. Compound coating, sometimes called candy melts or almond bark, replaces cocoa butter with palm kernel or other vegetable fat. It needs no tempering, sets hard at room temperature and is genuinely convenient. It also tastes waxy and, in the US, cannot legally be called chocolate.

Nutrition, briefly

Per 100 g the four categories differ mostly in sugar and saturated fat balance rather than in calories, which cluster around 530 to 570 for all of them. Reference values for each are in USDA FoodData Central. Flavanol content, which is what most chocolate-and-health coverage is actually about, tracks non-fat cocoa solids: substantial in dark, much lower in milk, effectively zero in white. We look at what that does and does not mean in chocolate and health.