Welcome to How To Cook That I am Ann Reardon today I am really excited
about this video I am going to show you how to make chocolate all the way from the cocoa
beans to the bar. Now if you can't get hold of cocoa beans I'll also show you how to make
it using cocoa powder as well.
If you want to make it using the beans the first thing you'll need to do is buy some
cocoa beans. And you can buy them raw like these ones that I bought while I was in Mexico.
And beans from around the world have all different flavours - most the chocolate that you have
tasted will have bean from one variety of coca bean only. There are so many different
chocolate flavours so make sure you source some cocoa beans from different places around
the world.
When the beans are raw like this they have a reddish tinge, they are firm, you can't
break the shell off them. So the first thing we need to roast the beans.
Spread them out in a single layer onto a lined baking tray. Look through and take out any
that are shriveled or don't look good. And we want to get rid of those and keep the
good looking ones. Roasting them brings out the chocolate flavour and smell but it also
releases the shell from the bean so we can get it off.
The easiest way for you to buy a small quantity of cocoa beams is to buy from a bean to bar
chocolate maker and I'll put a list on this weeks blog post on howtocookthat.net of some
from all around the world for you. Preheat your oven to 54C or 130F and then
put the beans in and immediately turn the heat up to 121c or 250F
Put your timer on for exactly 15 minutes. Once the timer goes I want you to turn the
oven back down to 50C or 120F and open the oven door for a minute to let it rapidly cool
down. Then close the door and leave them in there for another 12 minutes.
Now they should be done take them out of the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes.
You can also buy beans that are already roasted - like these ones I got from a chocolate maker
in Australia, these beans were grown in Somalia and they have a completely different taste
to the mexican ones.
Step 2. You need to remove the shell now, you can do this by hand which I think for
small quantities like this I definitely the easiest way. Gently twist the bean and then
remove the shell bits.
The other way you can do this is the crush the beans using a rolling pin. then tip them
onto a tray or a bowl and gently blow with a hairdryer to remove the lighter shells.
I found that method messy and not as effective as doing it by hand.
I also found the shells on the freshly roasted beans were much easier to remove than the
ones on the beans that I bought already roasted. So if you can source the raw cocoa beans and
roast them yourself.
Then you'll be left with a pile of thin shells and a bowl of cocoa nibs.
You can also buy cocoa nibs from the shops if you've bought them like that is they say
they are raw then you just need to spread them on a tray and roast them for 10 minutes
at 100C or 212 f these coca nibs are from peru, these ones so we are going to make three
different chocolates.
Step 3 is to mill your beans and make them finer. I am using a blender for these ones.
- unless you're filming keep the lid on or you'll get cocoa bean bits all over your bench.
Once it is reasonably fine tip it into a bowl and microwave for about 30 seconds. This is
going to start to melt the cooca butter that is in the beans Cocoa beans are about 50%
cocoa butter. Tip that back into the blender and add your powdered sugar. This needs to
be pure icing sugar with no added cornstarch. If you can't find that use normal white sugar
instead and blend that first on it's own to break it down into a powder.
Next step is grinding. Now all I have is a mortar and pestle so my chocolate is not going
to be any where near as smooth as chocolate you buy in the shops. You can buy a chocolate
grinder which has turning stone wheel that you leave that on for several hours to break
down the chocolate particle size. Commercial chocolate factories use big steal rollers
to crush it down to a tiny 20 microns - To give you an idea of just how small that is,
it needs to be about half the size of your powdered sugar or icing sugar. But that tiny
particle size in your chocolate is what makes it feel so smooth in the mouth and also makes
it taste creamier because those chocolate particles can get right in where your taste
buds are on your tongue.
So keep grinding until your arm hurts knowing that you are not get it as fine as it is in
the shops.
The more you crush it you'll notice the moister it becomes as you release more of the cocoa
butter from the bean. If you had a chocolate grinder eventually it will become liquid on
it's own. But because we don't we need to add some extra cocoa butter - just melt it
in the microwave and pour it in. Then grind some more and you've got chocolate.
At this point the commercial chocolate is then conched - which means it is stirred while
it is warm and melted, sometimes they conch it for days at a time just to get rid of any
acidy flavours to it.
We don't have a conching machine, I'm not going to stand here and stir it for three
days so all we are going to temper it and pour into our molds. I have a video explaining
all the different ways that you can temper at home. My favourite is using the freeze
dried cocoa powder and I'll show you that in the tempering video. Tempering makes the
cocoa butter set firm at room temperature instead of being soft. Leave that bar at room
temperature to set. Once it is ready tip it out of the mold and you've got a bar of home
make dark chocolate.
Now because you are making it yourself you can vary the recipe for the next block I am
using cocoa nibs, cocoa butter, cocoa powder. Cocoa nibs made of cocoa butter and cocoa
powder or rather cocoa powder comes from them but by adding them separately you can change
the proportions in you chocolate. We are also using icing sugar and the seeds from a vanilla
bean.
These proportions are about the same as you'll find in a lindt 80% dark chocolate bar. I'll
put all the weights for this on the howtocookthat.net website for you.
Put it all into blender or a food processor and blend until it is fine. Then warm up those
crumbs up in the microwave and you'll get a liquid - blend that for a couple of minutes
to get it as smooth as you can and then temper it and mold it. And you've got your very dark
chocolate.
For milk chocolate you will need cocoa nibs, cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder. Blend
it up, then grind it some more and mold it. In my opinion the milk chocolate really needs
a proper chocolate grinder. But they cost between 300 and 800 dollars so if you're just
doing it to have a go at making your won don't bother investing in that expense.
Now if you can't get cocoa beans they are made up as I said of about 50% cocoa powder
and 50% cocoa butter so you can swap out in any of these recipes. Just melt your cocoa
butter and mix in the icing sugar and cocoa powder. Remember even this will not be as
smooth as your brought chocolate because the powders have about double the particle size
you're used to when you buy commercial chocolate. So which one tastes the best? We have milk
chocolate , mexican dark chocolate and peruvian extra dark. I really like the mexican chocolate.
It has more of a nutty flavour to it than the other beans do.
The milk is of course the sweetest and I think it illustrates the particle sizes well because
you can see the little dots of cocoa bean so they don't have the smoothness of store
bought chocolate.
Definitely give it a go making your own at home and get a couple of different types of
beans so that you can see the different flavours they have.
Subscribe to how to cook that for more cakes chocolate and dessert, click here to go to
the video n how to temper chocolate, here for last weeks inside out cake and here for
all my other videos. And here to go to the howtocookthat.net website to get all of the
weights that you need for making your chocolate. Have a great week and I'll see you call on
Friday. [music: the boat song by youtube.com/setsailtv
used with permsission]