Has Anyone Ever Made Chocolate?
Decorating By Cookie4 Updated 11 May 2007 , 9:36pm by aguynamedrobert
Making chocolate is a very long process. The beans are not just roasted, they go through more steps than I can remember at this moment but you would have to really be an enthusiast to try it.
Beans are roasted, dried, fermented, crushed into nibs, cocoa butter removed, chocolate liquor removed then some more stuff I can't remember.
Then the liquor is mixed with sugar, cocoa butter, soy licethin (SP) and if you want milk chocolate, you add milk.
If you want the specifics, I can get my notes out from chocolate class and give you all the steps in the right order. If you try it, I would love to know what it was like.
cheftracy, that just reminded me of the nightmare that was my chocolate class. I hated that class, I still can't temper chocolate 
.
anyway back to the original question, I have seen it made in Mexico it is an extremely long process, it was interesting to see it though. I don't know that it can be made properly at home. Would be interesting to find out though 
Hmm, I don't know about making chocolate from cocoa beans, but I know a couple of home made chocolate recipes. Here's one..
3 egg yolks, 8 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, 6 teaspoons of cocoa, 2 teaspoons vanilla or rhum, or whatever flavor you like. You cook this in a double boiler, stirring continuously until it gets thicker. You let it cool a little and you add about half a cup of butter (100g) little at a time. Put in molds or in a glass tray and put it in the fridge to set.
I hope this helps. It's not very professional, it's home made, but it's good and healthy.
To cheftracy: Thanks for your input - I would love to have your notes from your Chocolate class. Just spent some 6 days working for a Chocolatier (sp?) and loved it but would like to try my hand at this myself from 'scratch'. You can pm or post here - thanks again. 
Hello,
Well I'm glad I stumbled across this forum...Yes making chocolate is a long and tedious process. You CAN make chocolate on your own but it will be near impossible to make it as good as the professionals because of makeshift equipment....
If you want to know more about making chocolate at home you can go to... www.chocolatealchemy.com
If you want to know anything and everything about chocolate from cacao bean to chocolate bar then go to this page...
http://www.chocolateguild.com/article/main
Hope this helps...if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me on my website and I will be glad to help.
Robert
Hi Robert:
Welcome to Cake Central and thank you for the two links for info regarding Chocolate. No, I haven't seen these sites before and will spend quite a while devouring their treasures of information.
I hope you enjoy the Cake Central site - it's very adicting. Be sure visit the Gallery to see many of the beautiful pictures uploaded by members and, of course, we would love to see some of your work as well.
Again, thanks for posting to this thread.
Cookie4
Haha...yeah I deciced, "Hey I'm already here...might as well check out some chocolate posts and answer some questions"....This is just a great site with so much enthusiasm from the members...great spot!
Robert
Goodness, now I am tempted to try...maybe just the "non-professional" version with baking cocoa, though. I love a challenge! And I seem to have this compulsion to try everything once. Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, if you will.
Randi
Yeah if any of you want to try it then go to the www.chocolatealchemy.com site. There is a forum there as well and there are lots of people that discuss the chocolate they make and the website lists out all the tools you need and exactly how to do it...
If anyone tries you will have to tell us all how it works out...
Robert
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%