Have you ever wondered how chocolate is made and whether you could make it yourself?  For sure you must have fantasized at least once in your life at the prospect of churning out trays of personalized chocolates goodies whenever you desired them. Well, if you have time on your hands and you are the adventurous type and are patient with a few choice pieces of cooking equipment, then you too could acquire the much revered skill of chocolate making.

It all begins with the raw material ‘cacao powder’. The cacao tree produces a pod containing a number of seeds or beans in its center surrounded by a pulp all enclosed in a thick fleshy skin. The pods are a picked, opened and the beans and husk put into huge wooden bins which are covered with large leaves and left untouched to ferment for a few days. Once they are suitably fermented they are spread out to dry in the heat of the sun for a week. When the beans are sufficiently dried they are sorted, separated by category and roasted in large ovens for at least half an hour where they darken and the flavor of the bean is enhanced.

The beans are then broken and separated from their shell by a process known as cracking and winnowing, resulting fragmented pieces are known as cocoa nibs. The grinding process releases the fat which combines with the grounded solids to form a thick paste called liquor. Solid chocolate is prepared by further refining the liquor using a process known as conching, which smooths and aerates it and then combining it with cocoa butter sugar, milk or milk powder (for milk chocolate), an emulsifier such as soy lecithin and (or) vanilla. The collective solution is then tempered by a process of carefully heating, cooling and allowing it to set several times, becoming more refined with each cycle. And mainly, that is how chocolate is made.

Roast the cacao in your oven for half an hour at a temperature not more than 325F, After roasting, allow the cacao to cool, crack the beans in a mill, this will allow the husk to come away from the bean. The light husk can be removed from the crushed beans using a small fan or any air blowing device.
When the separation process is completed, the beans must be finely ground using a good quality juicer producing the cocoa liquor. Adding cocoa butter, sugar, lecithin and milk and any other flavoring you require. Lastly the chocolate must be tempered. Tempering is the method used for those results in the finished product having a rich sheen and crispy snap

Hopefully from this basic overview, you will value the skill, time and care that go into making good quality chocolate. There is no alternative for the skill derived from time and experience in this art, as the slightest variations can extensively affect the outcome of the finished product. So you may just wish to continue enjoying your favorite treat already efficiently prepared for you by the hands of the masters.