As February is wrapping up, I can’t help but reflect back on some of the most important trends of the month. February is known for a lot of things, the month of love, black history month, and of course, chocolate. Chocolate and romance have always been a timeless duo that appears in February, especially with all the major companies offering great deals around this time. But if chocolate really is this important, it begs the question: how is it made?
Planting and Harvesting
The first step in making chocolate is to first ensure to plant and harvest the proper cacao tree in order to harvest the seeds of the cacao fruit. Cacao trees are found near the equator and thrive on warm tropical temperatures. Each individual fruit can grow to be anywhere from 5 to 7 inches and can contain roughly 30 to 50 seeds. The best way to describe a cacao fruit would be to call it a miniature red football that almost looks alien because of its stark color. But that quickly changes when the fruit ripens up and bleeds into a yellow/orange shade which signals farmers to begin the harvest. They first cut open the cacao fruit and harvest the cocoa seeds while removing the white pith that surrounds the inner structure of the fruit. Now that the seeds have been removed and collected, it is time for the next step.
Fermentation and Shipping
Once the cacao fruits have been harvested, their beans are set aside by local farmers to ferment for roughly 9 days. During this time, the crème colored beans are able to ferment into a “chocolatey” color. But before they can be shipped off, they have to be properly dried. They are spread out under the hot tropical sun for 7 to 14 days and have to be raked constantly during that time. But once the drying process is complete, the beans are graded, packed, and made available on the international market where companies can buy bulk quantities for their chocolate factories.
Cocoa and Chocolate
Now that the cocoa beans have been sold to chocolate producers, it’s time to make chocolate!
First: the cocoa beans have to be roasted at low heat in order to discard the shell and harvest the inner part of the bean called the nib. Once roasted, the shells are separated from the nibs through the process of winnowing.
Second: the nibs are finely ground into cocoa mass which is solid at room temperature.
Third: when the cocoa mass is subjected to high amounts of e pressure, it yields both cocoa butter and cocoa powder which are key ingredients in chocolate.
Now that all the main ingredients are ready, they have to be mixed into a paste which allows them to be combined. The 4 ingredients of cocoa mass, cocoa butter, milk powder, and sugar are the central parts of the three main types of chocolate. Dark chocolate is made by only combining cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar. Whereas white chocolate doesn’t use cocoa mass and only uses cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder. Milk chocolate is a mix of both as it uses all of the ingredients above in different ratios.
Couching, Tempering, and Moulding
Once the chocolate is all mixed up to become one of the three types of chocolate, it goes through the process of conching where the mixture is placed in a spinning container and is slowly rolled, heated, and aerated in order to deliver the final touches of flavor and consistency. After the conching process, the chocolate is then slowly brought down to a cooler temperature through the process of tempering. This allows the chocolate to have its shiny surface and iconic snap when a customer finally eats it.
The final step before the chocolate can get sent to a chocolatier is molding. Chocolate companies have to organize their chocolate in a way where chocolatiers have an easy time using their product. So they package the chocolate in cube-like fashion called a “pistole” and send the chocolate to its destination.
Eating Chocolate
Now that the chocolatiers have the chocolate, they can get to work on making all sorts of chocolate treats which any customer can buy and enjoy.
Images courtesy of HuffPost and Serious Eats
Comentários