Chocolate. It really is what makes the world go around. Not much more can and should be said.
My taste in chocolate has evolved towards the dark side, now definitely going above 70% cocoa, and more usually at 85%. I've been intrigued by making chocolate from scratch, starting from cocoa beans. I have not reached that point yet, but I did finally manage to try what happens when one starts with cacao paste and cocoa butter. The result was an incredibly deep and pure chocolate flavor, which makes me wonder about ingredients in the chocolate we purchase.
Raw cacao paste, also called cacao liquor is made by crushing raw cacao beans into a liquid. This liquid quickly solidifies at room temperature and the result is cacao paste. Cocoa butter is the fat that makes up about a half of raw cocoa beans.
I watched a number of YouTube videos, read a few blog posts and finally settled on the following:
- 100g cocoa paste, chopped roughly
- 200g cocoa butter, chopped roughly
- a pinch of salt - ground as finely as possible
- 1/4 cup powder sugar
Procedure (updated on June 7, 2020)
Step 1: Melt the ingredients:
- Put all ingredients in a metal bowl and place it over a pot of simmering water to form a double boiler.
- While stirring and scraping continuously, melt and mix the ingredients.
- Heat only until 120F. Use instant thermometer.
Step 2: Optionally, temper the chocolate - this will give you a snappy and shiny chocolate. Skip to the next step if you do not want to fiddle with precise temperatures.
- Put the bowl into cold water, and make sure no water drips into the chocolate.
- Keep stirring and scraping until the chocolate reaches 82F.
- Place the bowl back over the double boiler, and, while stirring and scraping, raise the temperature to 90F.
- Note: Chocoley has a good in-depth write-up about tempering chocolate.
Step 3: Fill the mold(s) and cool:
- Pour the liquid into a container or molds and let cool solidify at the room temperature.
- Refrigerate if you wish, but only after the chocolate has solidified.
- Consume.
Alternatively, one can use coconut oil instead of cocoa butter. In this case, chocolate will not solidify at the room temperature, so one should keep it in the fridge.
Here is what the chocolate looked like after being poured into molds:
