Russell Groves wrote:8 degrees here, and I'm shuttling back and forth between inside and outdoor wood boiler. Throwing sunflower seeds on the snow for the birds. Making chocolate. I mean, really making it from cacao nibs. This is ridiculously messy.
This time I started with roasted nibs. Previously I started with raw cacao beans, roasted, crushed, blah blah.
Nibs were in an insulated chest, along with cocoa butter. A 60 watt incandescent bulb warmed it all to the right temp.
The hardware is a Champion juicer. Nibs go into the hopper. Juicer uses a screw auger. Crushes them into a paste (chocolate liquor) that drops into one container. Fiber bits come out the end of the auger. At some point I started adding melted cocoa butter. When I had a container full of liquor, I took the fiber paste and put it back through the auger. Finished liquor went into a mixing bowl where I added cream, butter, allulose & sucralose, cinnamon and chile flakes. That mixture into a baking pan lined with parchment. 250 degree oven until it's more liquid, then a whole lot of mixing and stirring and tasting.
Finished product is dark chocolate, mildly sweet, with a little chile kick. It's a building block. Future additions will include more sweetening, vanilla, nuts, more chile. One of my favorite snacks is whole chiles dipped in melted chocolate.
It's a lot of work. Now it's done and I head back outdoors to feed the boiler.
Thanks for shearing this useful info.
