Step 1: Equipment and Ingredients. The ingredients you'll want are as follows: Cocoa beans. ...
Step 2: Roasting the Beans. Take some beans. ...
Step 3: Winnowing the Nibs. ...
Step 4: Refining the Cocoa. ...
Step 5: Conking the Chocolate. ...
Step 6: Tempering the Chocolate. ...
Step 7: Using the Chocolate!
2 cups (220g) cocoa powder strategy
3/4 cup (170g) butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
2/3 cup (150ml) milk, room temperature
1/4 cup (30g) powdered sugar
1 cup (235ml) water
Cocoa Bean Method (Advanced)
Cocoa beans ( 1 lb or ~.5 kg is a good amount to start with)
You can also buy cocoa nibs and skip Steps 1 and 2
Cocoa butter
Nonfat coco powder
Sugar
Lecithin
1 vanilla pod (optional)
Roast the cocoa beans. Roasting the beans will improve the flavor of the chocolate, in addition to sterilizing them and making cracking easier. Here's what you need to know:
Lay the beans in a single layer across a baking sheet. Start off with an 18-minute roast in a preheated oven at 120ºC (250ºF). They'll be ready when they start to crack and when they actually taste like chocolate (but let them cool before tasting!).
In general, expose the beans to an initial high temperature then to a lower the temperature gradually. Stop roasting when the beans start to crack (but not burn). You can accomplish this in your oven or by using a store-bought roaster. The temperature and duration will depend on how many beans you're roasting, but try 5 to 35 minutes at temperatures between 120 and 160ºC (250-325ºF).
For roasting larger quantities of cocoa beans, you may want to invest in a drum, which is rotated over a gas grill.
See the Tips and Warnings below about roasting.
Crack the beans. After roasting, the beans must be cracked into nibs and winnowed, during which the husks (chaff) are removed.
For small batches, crack the beans with a hammer and remove the husks (which should be loose after proper roasting) by hand.
For larger batches, use a coarse, Corona-type mill or purchase a specialized mill to crack the beans into nibs. (In case you were wondering, a meat grinder doesn't work.)
Winnow the nibs. Once you've cracked the beans, get rid of the leftover husks. Stir the beans gently with your hands or a spoon as you blow on them with a hair dryer or small shop vac until the husks are gone.
Grind the nibs into cocoa liquor. You will need equipment strong enough to liquefy the nibs and separate the remaining husks. General food processors, Vita-Mix, coffee grinders (burr and blade), meat grinders (manual and electric) mortar and pestles, and most juicers will not work. You may need to experiment to find equipment that gets the job done.
Many home chocolates find success with a "Champion Juicer"[1]. Feed the nibs into the grinder/juicer one handful at a time, being sure to push them in gently (not forcefully) or else the motor may overheat. Cocoa liquor will come through the screen and a mixture of husks and liqueur will find its way through the spout. Feed this mixture through the juicer again until only the husks come through the spout.
Measure out the other ingredients you'll need. Weigh the cocoa liquor in grams using a kitchen scale. You will use this measurement to determine how much of the other ingredients you will add. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, you can eyeball the proportions, which should be as follows:[2]
Cocoa butter: up to 20 percent as much as there is cocoa liquor
Sugar: anywhere from 15-20% (bittersweet) to 75-80% (very sweet milk chocolate) as much as there is cocoa liquor
Nonfat milk powder: for a milk chocolate, use the same volume (not weight) as the cocoa liquor, or slightly less.
Vanilla (optional): Split the pod and soak it in the cocoa butter for an hour.
Conch and refine the chocolate. By definition, consing affects the characteristic taste, smell and texture of the chocolate, while refining reduces the size of the cocoa solids and sugar crystals. Both processes can be applied at the same time with a powerful wet grinder (success has been reported with a Spectra 10 melange, also called the "Stone Chocolate Melange"). How you conch and refine the chocolate will depend on what equipment you use, but here are guidelines for the Spectra 10 melange:
Remove the chocolate from the molds after it has hardened. The molded chocolate should have a glossy appearance and should snap cleanly in two.
If you are unsatisfied with your chocolate, you may re-temper the chocolate as long as the chocolate remains dry and you haven't burned it.
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