Making chocolate the traditional way can be done at home, although it’s a lengthy and involved process. If you want to pursue making homemade chocolate as a hobby and it’s important to you to make all of your chocolate from scratch you can do that but you’ll need some specialized equipment and a lot of time on your hands. Some people really do enjoy making chocolate from scratch, so you should give traditional chocolate making a try to see if it’s a hobby that you are interested in pursuing. Using a traditional process to make the chocolate home has several steps:
1. Choosing the beans.
Chocolate is made from cacao beans so when you first start off making
chocolate the traditional way you need to start with some high-quality cacao
beans. There are suppliers on the
Internet that sells different varieties of cacao beans at many different prices
ranges so if you are looking for whole cacao beans it isn’t too hard to find
them.
2. Roasting the beans.
Cacao beans need to be roasted just like coffee beans. You can roast them at home on a cookie sheet
in the oven, if you watch them carefully or you can buy a specialized cacao bean
roaster for at-home use if you’re going to pursue traditional candy making as a
hobby. The beans are usually roasted for as little as five minutes or as many
as 35 minutes depending on the type of bean and the flavor that you want to
achieve.
3. Getting the chocolate out.
After the beans are roasted you need to crack open the outer shell of
the bean to get the chocolate that is inside out. There are several ways to do this at home.
You can lay the beans on a single sheet on a counter or on a baking sheet and
use a hammer to crack the shells open, then use a blow dryer on a low setting
to blow the hulls of the beans away from the chocolate or you can use a juicer
to accomplish the same goal. This step can be very messy, so make sure that you
have a mop and bucket and lots of clean up supplies standing by.
4. Grinding and Refining the
chocolate. Now you
need to grind the chocolate down as fine as possible. If you’re going to do
this at home many expert chocolate makers recommend using a high-quality juicer
to grind the chocolate. After the
chocolate has all been ground as finely as possible you need to add milk,
sugar, preservatives, or anything else that you’re planning on adding to the
chocolate to enhance the flavor. Once everything is mixed with the other
ingredients the chocolate will need to be agitated slowly but constantly. This
process could take up to 12 hours to get the chocolate to exactly the right
consistency. Experts recommend using a
stand mixer on a low setting to refine the chocolate.
5. Tempering the chocolate. Once the chocolate has been fully
refined it needs to be tempered before you can use it. Tempering chocolate at home can be a very
complicated process but if you want to cheat a little and speed up the
procedure you can use a microwave to temper your homemade chocolate. Once the chocolate is tempered and is smooth,
hard, and shiny it’s ready to be used or eaten.
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