New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Making chocolate

post #1 of 4
5/19/11 at 7:46am
Thread Starter 

So I am a self admited chocoholic, last year going to the international chocolate show in NYC really changed my life. Since then I got fresh cacao beans, just to mess with. I also started using cacao nibs quite a bit more. I always liked to use cocoa powder and mix it with sweeteners to make a fudge or something. Cocoa powder + honey = yumminess. Anyway I just recently started buying cacao paste\liquor and cacao butter and making my own chocolate bars by melting the stuff in a low temp double boiler adding whatever to it (agave nectar, honey, sugar, sea salt, ground nibs, ground peanuts, peanut butter, etc…) Anyway its so much fun I just wanted to share I never new how easy it was to make chocolate bars. I brought some into work today to share with some of my customers and they all really loved it! This was only my 4th attempt but a vast improvement from the first and second. The hardest part I find is waiting for the chocolate to cool down and get to solid bar form. Does anybody else have any experience making chocolate like this or any other form?

Reply
post #2 of 4
5/27/11 at 9:06pm

I am also chocolaholic. But my main reason for making my own choc is  because of high frutose corn syrup, msg, aspartame etc and its ill affect on health, All though I have not attempted chocolatring as a profession I have made all kinds of combination with choc ,dipped fruit, mousse, candy bars, choco syrup, choco pies, on and on. I feel ya

Reply
post #3 of 4
5/27/11 at 9:37pm

Work with it every day.

 

Lots of books and information on it, and it is a pretty intereting and complicated subject.  Cocoa butter is "poly-morphic", meaning it has 6 distinct stages, all affected by temperature, with only two stages being stable.

 

I;m confused with all the corn syrup and crap.  Chocolate only contains coca liquor/cooca mass, sucrose or sugar, cooca butter, vanilla, and soy lecethin.  Anything else is pure garbage

Reply
post #4 of 4
5/31/11 at 8:27pm
Thread Starter 

I have been having a lot of fun with this lately finding that mini cup cake things work great as molds. Also the double boiler can even get to hot I feel. I am not sure I follow you about cocoa butters 6 stages, but will research it quite a bit now. The hardest part is still waiting for them to cool.

Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Pastries and Baking General