“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” -Charles M. Shultz
Chocolate is definitely on the list of my “Top 10 Favorite Foods.” With its amazing flavor, versatility and health benefits, there isn’t a thing I don’t like about good, quality chocolate. Inspired by a recent visit to Manoa Chocolate Hawaii, my interest and passion for chocolate was only deepened. Seeing the bean-to-bar transformation first hand, sent me right to the internet to buy my own raw cacao beans.
While sipping on some Chocolate Tea (made from the husks of roasted cacao beans) I searched a few websites and watched several online videos on how to make chocolate at home.
More popular with the kids was the Chocolate Tea Latte with coconut sugar and a splash of cream.
The only beans I could acquire online were sourced from Peru. Although they looked a bit different, the raw beans all had relatively the same flavor. They also tasted similar after roasting so I am only putting them in order of preference, for review purposes, based on physical appearance and structure.
My rating: #1 Navita #2 Terrasoul #3 The Raw Food World
Making chocolate is a nuanced process and overall flavor and texture is determined by where beans are grown, how they are fermented on-site, and later, how they are roasted and processed. I took the most basic approach for my first attempt and was pleased with the end product. A little more astringent than I would have liked, I think the tart flavor of my chocolate had to do with roasting time. I didn’t want to burn my beans so I roasted for the shortest recommended time. Next time, I will add 5-10 minutes to the roasting time to see if this will make a difference. I also skipped the refining stage that can be accomplished using a mortar and pestle to further blend the beans, enhancing both flavor and texture. The final stage chocolate makers don’t ever skip is the tempering. Tempering chocolate keeps the fat from separating out, improves shelf life, stability and gives chocolate more of a sheen. I may be adding both of the above steps next time.
So, in a cacao shell, here’s my quick method… (okay, that didn’t make much sense since the cacao beans are actually in a husk, not a shell, but the pun made me laugh).
Roast 5 minutes at 400º, reduce to 300º and roast an additional 15 minutes or longer (next time I will add at least 10 minutes).
Once cooled, separate beans from the hulls.
For this first batch, I kept it very small. I wanted a 70% dark chocolate so I used 35 grams of cacao beans and 15 grams of white sugar.
In a coffee grinder (not burr), grind sugar, then add cacao beans. Do this slowly, scraping down sides between grind bursts.
As the natural cocoa butter is released, the chocolate will become more liquified and smooth.
As mentioned above, the next step would be to further emulsify chocolate with a mortar and pestle and then to temper it on a marble slab but I stopped here. It already smelled and tasted rich and complex and well, I am impatient. My boys loved it! We ground up some peanuts for Chocolate Peanut Balls, coated macadamia nuts and formed tiny artisan chocolate chips. We also added some of the chocolate to warm cream for an out-of-this-world hot chocolate. Such fun! I am thankful I still have lots of raw cacao beans to experiment with.
The story of chocolate is a tragic, as there is so much more to the industry than many know. Please take a moment to read Cocoa-nomics: Why chocolate really doesn’t grow on trees. There are some great chocolate manufacturers out there trying to ethically produce high quality chocolate, like Manoa Chocolate Hawaii, and we should support their efforts.
