Homemade Chocolate

You can make chocolate at home using traditional methods, although it’s sometimes a lengthy and involved process. If you wish to try making homemade chocolate as a hobby and it’s important to you to make all of your chocolate from scratch you can do it.  You will need to buy some specialized equipment but not a lot.  Traditional chocolate makingfrom scratch is a great hobby, so you should give traditional chocolate making a try to see if it’s the right choice for you.

Steps for making homemade chocolate:

1.Selecting the beans. Chocolate comes from cacao beans so when you begin  making chocolate the traditional way you should start with some good quality cacao beans. The better the beans, the better the chocolate!  There are several websites that sell different varieties of cacao beans in many different price ranges.  So, it is easy to find whole cacao beans on the web.

2. Roasting the beans. Similiar to coffee beans, cacao beans need to be roasted. You can roast them on a cookie sheet in your oven if you are careful not to let them burn. You can also buy a specialized cacao bean roaster for at home use if you decide to try traditional candy making as a hobby. The beans will need to be roasted for as little as five minutes or as many as 35 minutes depending on the type of bean and the flavor that you are looking for.

3. Removing the chocolate out. After the beans are roasted, crack open the outer shell of the bean to remove the chocolate. There are several ways to do this at home. One way is to place the beans in a single sheet on a counter or on another hard surface and use a hammer to crack the shells open. Then use a blow dryer on a low setting to blow the hulls  away from the chocolate. You can also use a juicer to extract the chocolate. Removing the chocolate can be very messy, so make sure that you have a mop and bucket and lots of cleaning supplies on hand.

4. Grinding and refining the chocolate. Next, you should grind the chocolate as fine as possible.  Many expert chocolate makers recommend using a high quality juicer to grind the chocolate at home. When the chocolate has been ground as finely as possible, you will add milk, sugar, preservatives, and the other ingredients that you want to add to the chocolate to improve the taste. Once everything is mixed together, the chocolate will need to be agitated slowly but constantly. This process could take up to 12 hours to get the chocolate to exactly the right consistency. Some experts suggest using a stand mixer on a low setting to refine the chocolate.

5. Tempering the chocolate. Once the chocolate has been fully refined it needs to be tempered before you can use it. Tempering chocolate at home can be time consuming, but if you want to speed up the procedure you can use a microwave to temper your homemade chocolate. Once the chocolate is tempered and is smooth, hard, and shiny. Now, it’s ready to be eaten or used in your favorite chocolate recipes!