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When you go through the grocery store, all the chocolate bars are lined up on a shelf. How were they made? It didn't happen quickly. This process begins in warm places, like South America, where the cacao tree grows. It has fruits that are filled with seeds, called cacao beans. These beans are the base of your chocolate bar. First they are fermented and dried by the sun. Next they are sent to a chocolate maker and roasted. Roasting makes the flavor of the beans come out strongly but you have to be careful. Beans from different places have different tastes so everything has to be sorted out for the best flavor. Winnowing in the next step. This is when the meat of the bean is taken out of it's shell. The meat of the bean is then ground, making a liquid called chocolate liquor. (The solid beans become liquid because of the high fat content.) Now, you have created a bitter substance that can be used for several things.
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You can let it get solid and make a bar of unsweetened chocolate. You can press out the fat and make cocoa butter. Cocoa butter can be used in many ways, including making white chocolate and even tanning. Another way to use this is to ground up the unsweetened chocolate bar into powder. However, it still has that unpleasant bitter taste, not like the chocolate most people enjoy. To make this unsweetened mixture into a regular bar, there a three steps you need to follow. First you need to add ingredients, like sugar, sugar, and maybe milk. The ingredients you add depend on the maker and their preferences. Some people have secret recipes that they use to make their chocolate! Conching is a process that is done by a machine to mix all the ingredients together. But it doesn't happen right away. In fact, it can take up to six days for the chocolate to be mixed enough for it to be used. The final step is tempering. The chocolate is heated and then cooled slowly. If you skip this step your chocolate is not going to harden correctly or separate into distinct ingredients. When all this is done correctly, you'll have a bar of chocolate, just like the ones you find at the store! | |
