Delicious discovery

Delicious discovery
Inside UMD’s Chocolate Lab, students use cocoa-infused creativity to uncover the complexities of chemical engineering

What’s the best way to learn about chemical engineering? Chocolate, of course.

Started by chemical engineering professor Steve Sternberg, the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Chocolate Lab gives undergraduate students a real-world (and real tasty) opportunity to learn the basics of the engineering process. 

From roasting raw cacao beans to molding their final confection, students unpack the chocolate-making process into easily defined steps. Sternberg says the hands-on experience helps illustrate more complex chemical engineering concepts.

"Making chocolate is a chemical engineering process,” he says. “It’s exactly what we teach our students to do."

Step inside the UMD Chocolate Lab. And don’t forget your sweet tooth.

 

Test your knowledge

What is the best way to store chocolate?

  • You don’t store chocolate! You just eat it right away!
  • In a locked chest.
  • In a cool, dry room. Ideally, you should store chocolate in a place where the temperature stays between 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • In a freezer.

Which country produces the most chocolate?

  • Ivory Coast In fact, the Ivory Coast produces about 45% of the world’s chocolate.
  • Burkina Faso
  • Nigeria
  • Brazil

Where did cocoa trees originate?

  • Africa
  • Central America
  • South America Records of cocoa trees date back at least 5,000 years.
  • India

Which one of the following is not a type of cocoa?

  • Trinitario
  • Ciriolla
  • Forastero
  • Benguet Actually, benguet is a type of coffee

UMD students visited ______ in January to learn about growing cocoa.

  • Ivory Coast
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Vietnam
  • Peru
 
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