CHOCOLATE

Theobroma Cacao

Chocolate is a food which stems from the cocoa beans. it is a common ingredient in many candies, ice cream, cookies, pies, cakes and desert.

The chocolate is obtained by fermentation, roasting and drying of the bitter beans that come from the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) originally from Central America.

Mucilage

As soon as harvested, the pods are broken with a club or a machete to extract the beans which are coated with a white pulp, called 'Mucilage'. This process is called 'pod breaking'. Each pod contains 20 to 50 seeds, and twenty pods provide 1Kg of dried beans.

Fermentation
Process

The beans are sorted, cleaned and subjected to fermentation 

4 to 6 days in wooden boxes covered with banana leaves, in order to develop an early aroma as a result of natural chemical reactions. This first fermentation permits to liquefy the pulp surrounding the beans. During the second fermentation, the alcoholic pulp is transformed into vinegar. The beans are cleaned and the fermentation is stopped. these beans are aerated then dried.

Sun Drying Process 

After that, the agglomerated packets of beans are burst to later be sorted. To reduce the moisture rate from 60% to 8%, the beans are placed on racks in the sun or in artificial dryers. This process requires 1 to 2 weeks, and it shouldn't be too slow (moulds) or too fast (acidity).

After that process, the beans are mixed with hot air; this is called calibration;

The flat beans are faulty, so they are set aside for powder or cacao butter.

Roasting Process

The plump beans are bagged and sent to the roasters. They are then roasted between 120ºC and 140ºC. The degree and roasting time will vary depending on the origin of the beans, the type of cacao or chocolate that is sought. Each type requires the cacao roaster to graduate the roasting time and degree of heat.

The beans are then passed to the 'crushing' to later be processed until getting the crane, the bitter cacao paste.

Aztec holding
Theobroma
 bean

Aztecs Preparing Chocolate

The Aztecs pounded the cacao beans on there knees, using a mortar half wood half iron slightly heated on a flad stone. The beans were roasted and then crushed with spices, pepper, cinnamon, and achiote, then it is served.

Once crushed, the cacao beans are transformed into liquid paste called cacao mass, or pulp, or cacao liquor. It is from this dough that we can prepare cacao powder, cacao bar, or chocolate,.

After the cacao pulp is crushed it is pressed in hydraulic presses equipped with filter cloths and we obtain two products:

• A liquid, cacao butter, will be deodorized then poured into moulds where it will solidify; this represents about the half of its weight.
• A solid, the meal which be crushed to give cacao powder.

Conching Process

Cacao pulp is used to make chocolate by adding sugar, cacao butter, and optionally, milk. The cacao pulp is mixed with other materials in a fix. For example, a bitter chocolate should never contain more that 40% of sugar. The pulp must undergo 'conching'; a mechanical shaking during 12 to 48 hours under 80ºC of temperature. the Crystallization of the chocolate butter will bring it all its brilliance...once cast.

The whiter the chocolate is, the more it contains cacao butter and less chocolate powder. It is said that the true fans only like dark chocolate...in fact there is no white chocolate in the chocolate lovers gourmet clubs tasting.