My Chocolate Fantasy

Lloyd Gordon asked:


Ever wondered how chocolate is made and whether you could make it yourself? Surely you must have fantasized at least once in your life at the prospect of churning out trays of personalized chocolate goodies whenever you desired them. Well, if you have time on your hands and you are the adventurous type and are patient with a few choice pieces of cooking equipment, then you too could aquire the much revered skill of chocolate making.

Before we get into the domesticated version of chocolate making, it would be beneficial to understand the tried and tested processes that the industry uses to make large volumes of our favorite treat.

It all begins with the raw material ‘cacoa’. The cacoa tree produces a pod containing a number of seeds or beans (as they are commonly known) in its center surrounded by a pulp all enclosed in a thick fleshy skin. The pods are a picked, opened and the beans and husk put into large wooden bins which are covered with large leaves and left untouched to ferment for a few days. Once they are suitably fermented they are spread out to dry in the heat of the sun for about a week. When the beans are sufficiently dried they are sorted, separated by category and roasted in large ovens for up to half an hour where they darken and the flavor of the bean is enhanced.

The beans are then broken and separated from their shell by a process known as cracking and winnowing, which uses compressed air to blow the shells away from the seeds. The resulting fragmented pieces are known as cocoa nibs.

Now the nibs are finely ground. The grinding process releases the fat content which combines with the grounded solids to form a thick paste called liquor. The liquor gives rise to two other substances, cocoa butter obtained by pressing the fat from the liquor and the remaining dried cocoa which is most commonly use to make drinking chocolate.

Solid chocolate is made by further refining the liquor using a process known as conching, which smooths and aerates it and then combining it with cocoa butter sugar, milk or milk powder (for milk chocolate), an emulsifier such as soy lecithin and (or) vanilla. The combined solution is then tempered by a process of carefully heating, cooling and allowing it to set several times, becoming more refined with each cycle. And basically, that is how chocolate is made.

Now, it would be unrealistic to expect you to find your own cacoa pods to pick and ferment (let alone sun dry in the middle of winter), so you can skip the earlier phases as raw cacoa is now commonly available to buy.

Roast the cacoa in your oven for up to half an hour at a temperature not more than 325F, you may want to experiment with this as roasting times may vary considerably depending on the type of bean you are using and the intensity of your oven however, ensure that you don’t burn them as it will seriously affect the taste.

After roasting, allow the cacoa to cool, ***** the beans in a mill, this will allow the husk to come away from the bean. The light husk can then be removed from the crushed beans using a small fan, hair dryer or any other practical air blowing device.

When the separation process is complete, the beans must be finely ground using a good quality juicer which will produce the cocoa liquor. Add cocoa butter, sugar, lecithin and milk (if you’re making milk chocolate) plus any other flavoring you require. At this stage the solution although chocolaty is still in need of refinement and conching which is accomplished using a conching machine. Conching can take anything between 12 hours and 2 days depending on the quality of chocolate being made but if you don’t have a conching machine you can use a wet grinder to remove any remaining solid particles.

Finally the chocolate must be tempered. Tempering is the method used that results in the finished product having a rich sheen and crispy snap. This is done by gently heating it to about 115F, pour some of the liquid onto a marble slab and gently work it around for around 10 minutes, as it cools to about 85F and begins to set, add more of the simmering liquid now being maintained at about 95F, and continue to work it back and fourth on the slab. Now return it to the rest of heated liquid and repeat the process. The amount of refinement obtained will simply depend on the number of times the process is repeated. Pour the liquid into a mold, allow it to set and finally…Enjoy.

Hopefully from this basic overview, you will appreciate the skill, time and care that goes into making good quality chocolate. There is no substitute for the skill derived from time and experience in this art, as the slightest variations can significantly affect the outcome of the finished product. So you may just wish to continue enjoying your favorite treat already professionally prepared for you by the hands of the masters.

Chris Alleny asked:


Making chocolate is a long process, beginning with the growing and cultivating of the cacao trees and to molding the liquefied cacao in the chocolate factories, and finally designed and added with different types of flavors and confections. From the plantation of cacao trees in South and Central Americas as well as from other cacao growing countries like Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ecuador, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, and Dominican Republic, to the wonderfully lined chocolates in chocolate shops, chocolate is a world-wide production that goes through a lot of hands.

Three main cacao varieties

There are three main varieties of cacao trees that are cultivated for making chocolate and distributed all over the world: the Criollo, the Forastero and the Trinitario. The Criollo cacao tree comes from Central America and makes up about ten to fifteen percent of total cacao trees in the world. They are small trees that are hard to grow but develop beans that are rich in aroma and flavor. The Forastero cacao is a lot easier to grow and this make up almost 70 percent of cacao world production. Its beans have a bitterer flavor than the Criollo cacao beans. The Trinitario is a cross-breed of the Forastero and the Criollo cacao. It takes the aroma of Criollo and the resilience of Forastero against diseases and pests.

Growing under shade

In general, cacao trees shoot up as high as sixty feet when grown in the wild. Farmers who cultivate cacao trim them to about 20 feet so that their pods can be easily reached come harvest time, which usually happens twice a year. Cacao trees prefer to grow in shaded areas, particularly under the shade of taller trees and thus, in the orchard, cacao trees are planted beside banana trees, coconut trees, or rubber trees.

Harvesting cacao beans

The cacao pods take about five to six months to develop before they can be harvested. When the pod turns orange or red from a green or yellow color, then this means that it is ripe and ready for harvesting. Once the farmers harvest the pods using a machete, they place the pods in large wooden boxes covered with banana leaves. The pods are then left to ferment for days, depending on the type of cacao plant. Criollo beans ferment in around two to three days while trinitario and forastero need three to seven days to ferment. In the process of fermentation, the beans become wrinkled and darker in color, and its extremely bitter taste diminishes.

Distributing in chocolate factories

After fermentation, the beans are then dried under the sun for another several days. After drying, they are packed in sacks and shipped to factories all over the world for making all kinds of chocolate, from dark chocolate to white chocolate. The chocolate factory then sorts and cleans the beans then roasts them at 250 to 350 degrees for as long as two hours or as little as thirty minutes. The beans are then removed from their outer shell, crushed, melted, and ground to a thick paste until it becomes what is called, chocolate liquor, the main ingredient of chocolate. Depending on whether the production is for dark or milk chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and lecithin are then added.