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I have a problem understanding Ruby chocolate. It is still a mystery for me in many areas:

  1. Why does Ruby chocolate have virtually no fiber in it? As I understand, it does contain some cocoa solids which provide pink color and should also be source of dietary fiber as is the case in dark chocolate. The most Ruby chocolates I've seen claim around 0.7% - 0.9% dietary fiber in it. Doesn't make sense to me.
  2. Why does Ruby chocolate always contain milk in it? Isn't there any "dark ruby chocolate" i.e. without milk available somewhere? Just sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter -> like normal dark chocolate.
  3. What is the color of cocoa butter extracted from Ruby cocoa beans? Is it pink or yellow? My guess is yellow because I believe the pink color comes from cocoa solids.
  4. Why there isn't any Ruby cocoa powder available? I mean finely ground dry pink cocoa solids which are left after cocoa butter extraction.
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  • Much of this is explained in the ruby chocolate Wikipedia entry
    – Steve Chambers
    Commented Oct 19, 2022 at 23:22

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Ruby chocolate is a type of chocolate, not a type of cocoa bean. Just like "white chocolate" is a specific combination of cocoa solids, cocoa fat, milk and sugar, milk chocolate is another combination of these, etc., so is ruby chocolate.

So, to your points:

Why does Ruby chocolate have virtually no fiber in it?

Because it has almost no cocoa solids. You say that it has "some" cocoa solids, but the actual amount is very low. It is actually quite comparable to colored white chocolate, but the ingredient which gives it its coloring and aroma is extracted from a specifically preprocessed cocoa bean of certain varieties ("ruby cocoa beans"), not synthesized.

Why does Ruby chocolate always contain milk in it

Because that's what ruby chocolate is. It is the specific combination of milk, preprocessed ruby beans, etc. If you were to make dark chocolate out of the same beans, it would be dark chocolate, not ruby chocolate.

What is the color of cocoa butter extracted from Ruby cocoa beans

I haven't seen it done, so I cannot tell you what it looks like, physically. The liquor they use will certainly be colored, but it is also theoretically possible that the cocoa butter has a pink tinge.

Why there isn't any Ruby cocoa powder available? I mean finely ground dry pink cocoa solids which are left after cocoa butter extraction.

This is a marketing question, not a cooking question. The producers haven't decided to market it that way, and we cannot know what factored in in their decision.

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    Thank you for great answer. Just a little clarification: If you were to make dark chocolate out of the same beans, it would be dark chocolate, not ruby chocolate. I understand this is a formal definition of Ruby chocolate. However so-called "dark chocolate" from specifically preprocessed "ruby cocoa beans" would be dark pink in color, right?
    – user101315
    Commented Oct 20, 2022 at 14:16
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    @user101315 highly unlikely. If you follow the normal process of making dark chocolate, including the alkalization, the pigments won't ever turn pink anyway, and you will have the glossy brown-black of dark chocolate. If you would skip the alkalization (or maybe even acidify it - it is most likely that they are acidifying the ruby beans in their processing), you should get a lighter brown chocolate with reddish undertones, and an unpleasantly sourish taste.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Oct 21, 2022 at 8:22
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    Thank you for clarifying. I briefly went through Barry Callebaut's patent US9107430B2. They look for varieties of cocoa beans that are high in polyphenols (catechins, epicatechins, proanthocyanidins). They mention Lavados cocoa beans (unfermented, unroasted, non-alkalized, just washed and dried to preserve most of the polyphenols). During the processing cocoa nibs undergo acidification because those polyphenols turn red/purple in acidic environment. They use citric acid treatment in 2-4 pH range, which is the reason why citric acid is one of the ingredients of Ruby chocolate.
    – user101315
    Commented Oct 22, 2022 at 1:18
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    Now I realized that they pretty much utilized the same effect that we know from natural Red Velvet Cake. Natural (non-alkalized) cocoa (cacao) powder + acidic ingredient (buttermilk/kefir or vinegar) and it magically turns reddish. They just refined it further over the years to make it appropriate for large scale chocolate production.
    – user101315
    Commented Oct 22, 2022 at 1:29
  • @user101315 yes, exactly, it is the same effect. Although nowadays people seem to not bother when it comes to red velvet cake, most recipes I see call for food coloring. And while the cake is reddish, the substances which give yellow and brown undertones are removed from the ruby chocolate, so it is pink. Cool that you read the patent, I didn't have the number, and simple web/google scholar searches didn't turn it up for me.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Oct 22, 2022 at 8:21

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