How Do You Make Chocolate?

Making chocolate is no easy task – and one that is often best left to the professionals. However, if you have the time and the patience – making your own can be a fun activity, and of course, you get the added benefit of getting to eat the delicious chocolate that you’ve made after!  Here is a quick guide to how your favorite chocolates are made, from cocoa beans into some yummy dark chocolate.

Harvest the beans

Theobroma cacao trees are where chocolate begins. Only after the pods from this tree are fully mature are they picked for the production of chocolate. Beans from unripen pods have less sugar and cocoa butter in them, meaning they won’t taste as nice. The fermentation process, which produces a large portion of the iconic chocolate flavour, is fuelled by the natural sugars found in cocoa beans. After being collected, the seeds are removed from the pulp and pods and given time to start fermenting.

Fermentation

The yeast and bacteria found naturally in cocoa beans are used to carry out the fermentation process. The beans are only left out in the heat and humidity for about seven days to ferment. The beans must be dried promptly after fermentation to stop mould from growing.

Roasting

The beans are completely cleaned and free of any sticks, stones, or other debris during fermentation and drying. The dry roast process is generally used to roast the cocoa beans, which must be constantly stirred to achieve even heating throughout. Since no additional oils or fats are needed during dry roasting, the flavour is allowed to remain unaltered. The traditional chocolate flavour that we are all accustomed to is now complete.

Processing

Once roasted cooled cocoa liquor is then poured into the moulds, sold, and sent in these blocks to bakers. As an alternative, cocoa liquor can be divided into cocoa butter and cocoa powder, to create that strong chocolate taste.

Blending

There are countless goods made from cocoa that can be made by mixing cocoa liquor, baking chocolate, cocoa powder, and cocoa butter with other substances. Cocoa liquor is blended with additional cocoa butter for smoothness and texture, sugar, milk, and occasionally vanilla, emulsifiers, or stabilisers to create the chocolate candy that we are all familiar with. Milk or dark chocolate can be made in varying degrees depending on the amounts of sugar, milk, and cocoa added to the mixture Signature recipes are made by blending elements in a certain ratio, which specialist brands frequently guard fiercely.