When I say I made chocolate from scratch, you might be thinking that I went through the intense process of fermenting and roasting cacao beans, grinding, and something called conching. Since this process requires the use of heavy, automated and expensive machines (I saw one for $300!) in order to grind the cocoa nibs fine enough, I opted for a process that can be done from the comforts of your own home.
Making the Dish
ChefSteps has a great video that walks through a quick overview of what is needed to make chocolate and rationale for the steps they take in their “Make Chocolate at Home with No Fancy Tools.” They do not include the measurements in their instructions and you need to subscribe to their site to access the details on their post, so I ended up doing a bit of research. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, but I looked across several recipes and landed on the following amounts:
– 40 g cocoa butter
– 25 g cocoa powder
– 30-40 g maple syrup
– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
As featured in the video, I bought cocoa butter and powder from Meridian Cacao Co. for only $8-11 for 1 pound bags with which I can make a ton of chocolate. The key here as Chef Nick states is to use “undutched” cocoa powder to give that “more unique, artisanal flavor.” Fortunately, the rest of the ingredients are easily found at your local grocery store.
If you are familiar with chocolate-making, you know that tempering is the trickiest part about handling chocolate. Tempering is important to give that shiny exterior and classic snap when breaking the chocolate. I myself have always been too intimidated to give tempering a try, and unfortunately, I am not any less intimidated after going through this process. That being said, I continue to have such admiration for those fancy chocolatiers you might have seen with their chocolate molds and marble surfaces.
There was some conflicting information on the web, but for the most part, it looks like you want to start with your “chocolate liqueur” at around 115 degree Fahrenheit, cool down to 84, and then reheat to 89 so that it is the right consistency to be poured into the chocolate molds. Right off the bat, I was very concerned because my infrared thermometer read closer to 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit in both of my attempts. I made sure to follow the other temperatures to a tee and got mixed results. My mold yields 4 small chocolate bars – 1 of them could not be removed, 1 of them was very difficult to remove and seemed only partially tempered as characterized by the blooming appearance and lack of a snap, and the other 2 were fairly easy to remove with somewhat of a snap. The first two were the ones I poured first and added sea salt, while the other two were late additions after I saw how much chocolate remained in my bowl, so they may have yielded better results from being able to cool down further.
Eating the Dish
I was pleasantly surprised by how much the overall experience was similar to what you would expect from eating a regular chocolate bar, potentially even better! The chocolate tasted “fruity,” which is probably that “unique artisanal flavor” that the ChefSteps video referenced. I had a chance to test out a different combination, replacing the use of maple syrup with powdered sugar. The powdered sugar gave the chocolate a slightly gritty texture and had a slightly more “artificial taste” compared to the maple syrup. Next time, I would love to try out honey.
Summary
Seeing as how this is probably the simplest recipe by far and I have plenty of cocoa powder and cocoa butter left, I plan to experiment with this recipe a bit more and hopefully nail down the tempering and maybe even play around with different flavors.