How to make chocolate

There are many ways to make chocolate, the way outlined below made the best chocolate i have ever eaten and so this is the way i would suggest. Thanks to an amazing friend i had the pleasure to live in a cocoa producing little farm, where they gave tours to people to show the whats what. Since then, due to the wonderful life the people of the Colombian mountains maintain I was blessed with some cocoa, and went through the whole process, from fruit to in my mouth deliciousness, which for me, on the bike and with the weather and all took maybe 2 weeks. So here goes.

Get your hands on some ripe cocoa fruit, open it up and separate the beans so they can dry. To make the drying quicker you can eat off the slippery fruit like shell from the bean, this will save you maybe a few days depending on the weather.

This will take a good amount of time in the sun, to begin with the bean will be a purple ish colour inside, and when its nice and dry it will be a dark black colour, this means you are ready for the next stage.

Take the beans and give them a light toasting over a gentle heat, this will make it super easy to simply rub off the existing shell, and then you will have the pure bean in its ready to go form.

How much you toast the bean will depend on your personal taste, for me I prefer them well toasted and crispy, giving a real naturally strong but not overwhelming taste. At this stage the beans are delicious to eat, and you could call it a day here, although it will taste seriously strong and bitter, not a bad thing (depending on the type of bean, variations will exist). For me though though a more creative and delicious approach to just eating the bean in its raw stage is the following.

Grind the beans, if you dont have a grinder you could grate or improvise something else.

Now is the time where you can get creative and invent something that will be simple amazing to your own personal tastes. Firstly to make the mixing go more smoothly, gently heat up the grounded chocolate, this will allow the oils to be released and make things literally smoother. Then you can add whatever you like, an example of a good mix is the following, milk powder, condensed milk, brown sugar, water if needed to bond, all in very small quantities, alcohol, fruit, essence, herbs, extracts, the possibilities are endless.

then its time to get to work, you want to mix everything with a big spoon, and work it together for at least 5 minutes until everything is really mixed well and looks something like the following

From here you can roll it out flat and cut into squares, or roll into small balls, the most important thing to remember is that it will never taste as good as the first hour after mixing, unless you are exceptionally hungry that it.

Tags: amount of time - chocolate - cocoa fruit - cocoa tree - dry beans - few days - gentle heat - how to make chocolate - jason mcanuff - mountains - personal taste - pleasure - pod - thin outer shell - time in the sun - weather - wonderful life