Reporting at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, researchers from the University of Warwick in Britain say they have developed a way of infusing the rich sweet with fruit juice, vitamin C water, and diet cola that replaces up to 50% of chocolate’s fat content but still maintains that smooth, melt-in-your-mouth taste. …

The road to a lower-fat chocolate, lead researcher Stefan Bon and his colleagues reported, lies in a process called Pickering emulsion and a smattering of tiny droplets of juice or diet cola (less than 30 micrometers in diameter) that replace the butter and milk fats. The emulsion keeps the juice droplets from merging together into large drops within the chocolate, and maintains the crystal structure of the fat, which guarantees the same chocolatey, smooth “mouth feel” for which people enjoy the treat.