Chocolate is known throughout the world as a delightful treat and loved by most people. It is the most popular confectionary flavour worldwide. Eating chocolate gives you the same feeling as falling in love. This is probably why Valentine's Day and chocolate go hand in hand. We love and enjoy it in all its variety and forms, but just how much do we know about it?
The word “chocolate” comes from the Aztec word, “cacahuatl” or “xocolatl”, which means “bitter water”. Chocolate is extracted from Cocoa Beans. The scientific name for Cocoa tree is “Theobroma Cacao”, which is a Greek term meaning, “foods for the gods”. Cocoa trees require warm and moist climates to grow and are largely found in West Africa – Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Brazil. They are evergreen and never stop blooming. Before cocoa can be made into chocolate, it goes through several steps of processing.
Inspection and Cleaning
First, the beans are inspected and thoroughly cleaned of any debris that may have fallen into the sacks, such as sticks, stones, or broken beans. Once the beans are cleaned, the processor has the option of roasting them before or after the shell is removed.
Roasting
After being cleaned, the cacao beans pass to the first critical step in flavor development at the factory: roasting. There are two main approaches to roasting: roast the beans for a short time at high heat, which produces a strong chocolate flavor but eliminates any subtle, floral notes and risks the development of charred flavors from over-roasting, or roast the beans for a long time at low heat, which allows the more delicate flavors to come through but sacrifices the big, chocolate flavor.
Winnowing — Getting Rid of the Shells
After roasting, the beans are put through a winnowing machine which removes the outer husks or shells, leaving behind the roasted beans, now called nibs.
Milling — Making Cocoa Liquor
The nibs are then ground into a thick liquid called chocolate liquor, which essentially is cocoa solids suspended in cocoa butter. Despite its name, chocolate liquor contains no alcohol.
Pressing — Cocoa Powder and Cocoa Butter
The processing now goes in a couple of different directions. Some batches of chocolate liquor are pressed to extract the cocoa butter, which leaves a solid mass behind that is pulverized into cocoa powder. The remaining cocoa butter is reserved to help in chocolate-making.
The Beginnings of Chocolate
To make milk chocolate, milk and sugar are mixed together and then blended with chocolate liquor. This sweet combination of ingredients is stirred until the flavors are thoroughly combined.
Refining — Smoothing It All Out
After being mixed, both dark and milk chocolates go through the same process. The mixture travels through a series of heavy rollers which press the ingredients until the mixture is refined to a dry flake. Additional cocoa butter and a small amount of emulsifying agent are added to the flake and then mixed to make a smooth paste ready for “conching.”
Conching — Kneading for Exquisite Flavor
Conching further develops flavor by putting chocolate through a kneading process. The conches, as the machines are known, have heavy rollers that plow back and forth through the chocolate mass anywhere from a few hours to up to seven days.
Tempering — Temperature Magic For A Perfect Product
The mixture is then tempered, or passed through a heating, cooling and reheating process. Tempering allows you to solidify chocolate in a way that keeps it glossy, causes it to break with a distinctive snap and allows it to melt smoothly in your mouth.
Moulding — We're Getting Closer
The mixture is then poured into moulds and cooled in a cooling chamber.
Finally — Something We Can Eat!
Once cooled, the chocolate is demoulded, packaged for distribution and is ready for savoring.
Source : allchocolate
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