Make your very own bar of homemade chocolate this World Chocolate Day: Recipe!
No, it's not going to take weeks...
Yes there's nothing as quick and satisfying as Blink-it-ing your favourite bar of chocolate and gorging on it solo. But in honour of it being World Chocolate Day today, making your own bar of chocolate sounds like the right kind of bougie.
Now you've probably already seen a host of reels and videos of chefs and food influencers sourcing their very own cacao pod and starting the incredibly painstaking process of well, making chocolate from scratch. And the average run time for this, can last anywhere between one to three weeks. But before you bow out of this piece, what if we told you, you could have your very own bar of homemade chocolate by the end of the day, with fabulously minimal effort?
We're here to tell you, that you don't need to source a cacao pod to make your own chocolate. It's as easy as getting a bag of already fermented and dried cacao beans (not pod!) and kickstarting the process from there. And there are quite a few brands that present this option at fairly reasonable rates — so Google away!
And while you're at it, here's what to do once your cocoa beans reach you.
Homemade chocolate bar
Ingredients: A bag of pre-fermented and dried cacao beans, sugar (to taste), cocoa butter (proportionate to the beans)
Method: Start by roasting your beans. Now while this can be done on a stove, popping them in the oven for 15 to 30 minutes (depending on the volume you're using) at 150C to 120C, will ensure uniform roasting. Once your kitchen starts smelling chocolate-y, pull the beans out and check their texture. If husk and flaky, their oven time is done.
To remove the husk and get to the cacao nibs which are actually going to give you your chocolate, simply pick up a bean and press between your fingers. The husk should fall off easily, leaving you with the nibs. Once you're done with the cracking, you move on to winnowing which basically entails getting rid of the remaining bits of husk from the nibs by subjecting it to some fast moving, hot air. Considering you don't live at a factory with proper machinery, your best bet in this regard is a hair dryer — just be sure to wear some form of protective gear over your eyes so that the husk doesn't fly into them.
Now pop the husk-free nibs into a food processor or grinder and turn them to powder. Now in goes the cocoa butter and sugar — the first will be directly proportional to the amount of beans you used while the latter will depend on how bitter or sweet you want your chocolate to turn out. In case you want to make milk chocolate, the same amount of milk powder is to be added to the mix.
Once you have something that resembles melted chocolate, you can either directly pour it into your chocolate mold, or you could temper it. Tempering involves bringing the chocolate's temperature up to warm and then letting it cool, which will then give it a glossy finish. If you chose to skip this step, your final bar of chocolate will taste a little grainy, but nothing major to ruin the texture.
And voila! You just made your own chocolate from scratch.
(recipe from Chocolate Phayanak)
It may not be the quintessential bean-to-bar rage, but it's still a fun amount of effort with an exciting pay off!
So, will you be channeling your inner Nara Smith today?
