Chocolate from Beans to Bar

I have been an artisan chocolatier for years now and have always been fascinated by how chocolate is made.  From a tree to a pod to beans then finally to bars, the whole process is like magic to me.  So years ago I have decided to try making a bar of chocolate from scratch and as it turns out, it was the most aromatic bar of chocolate I have ever tasted.  Now of course I could be bias because I made it but the process really led me to a different level of appreciating chocolates.  When I made that bar, I actually roasted the beans, did the cracking and winnowing (cracking open the beans and getting rid of the thin shells from the roasted beans), then the grinding, and refining, then tempering and molding. There was one step that I did miss was conching as I did not have the machine to really conch the cocoa like they do at the factory, chocolates getting to that smooth and melt in your mouth texture require a few days of continuous conching but at home, it is impossible to get to that texture unless you want to spend a lot of money to get a conching machine.  So the recipe that I am writing for you allow you to make your own bar of chocolate without having to purchase additional machines except ones that you probably already have at home.  I also started with Cocoa Nibs which will save you sometimes from cracking and winnowing as well.  Cocoa Nibs can be purchased online or at specialty stores and some gourmet supermarkets have them available as well. As you get really serious into making more fancy chocolates, you can explore to different types of beans and mixing them or add milk powder to make milk chocolate.  The only thing to keep in mind is that if you are mixing beans, please roast the same type of beans together and not to roast them altogether like you would with coffee beans. There are many kinds of cocoa beans out there, such as Ocumare Criollo, Forestero, Trinitario, etc.

 Things you will need:

A mini size food processor

Kitchen Scale
Bowls

Ingredient:

 

150g Cocoa Nibs
37g of Cocoa Butter (melted)
50g of superfine or powdered sugar (do not use granulated sugar)
Spices if you would like to add flavor to your chocolate

 

* This bar of chocolate will be dark chocolate and also it will be more grainy in texture than the store bought ones but will resemble more of the original Mexican style chocolate like the Mayan used to have.  They are great bars to make hot chocolate also. So please do not expect it to super smooth or you will be very disappointed.

 

To make the chocolate:

• Roasting the cocoa nibs, you do not have to roast the cocoa nibs if you do not want to but by roasting them it will bring out the flavors more and if you like your chocolate to be a little smokier then you can roast them a little longer.  Depending on how much you want to roast the nibs, you can roast them from 5 to 25 minutes and from 250 to 325F.  Remember you are roasting not baking so when you start to smell chocolate then you are done, take care not burn them

• Once they are cooled then you can transfer the nibs to the food processor

• Start grinding for a few minutes, stop and grind again for another few minutes, keep on doing it until the cocoa nibs becomes a mass and it will not grind anymore and it will be really hard at this point so you might need to really get the mass loosen with a wooden spatula

• Take out the cocoa mass now and transfer it to a bowl
• Then add sugar to the cocoa mass stir them together evenly

• Transfer the cocoa and sugar mass back into the food processor
• Add the melted pure cocoa butter

• Then start to process again, do the same thing like before start grinding for a few minutes and stop and start again until the mass become shinny liquid chocolate. By this time you will not believe how good the chocolate is smelling and will not be like any other chocolate you have ever smelled before

• Now you will need to temper the liquid chocolate by heating it up to about 115F degree then let it cool down to 86F degree then bring it back up to 88F degree
• Now you can pour the tempered chocolate into the bar mold

• You can either let the bars set at room temperature but it will take a long time to harden or you can put them into the fridge and will set in about half an hour
• Once set then loosen the molds by twisting it a little just like you would releasing ice tray then flip the mold over and the chocolate bars will fall out

Please note that because these chocolate bars will not be as shinny as the ones you buy in the store as they have not been conched for a long period of time to achieve the smoothness of those outside but this is a bar of chocolate that you make all by yourself!!
Enjoy!!