Comments on: Not perfect, but getting there! My latest #homemadechocolate saw me roasting the whole, raw cacao beans in our oven, rather than the cast iron pan. . I then cracked the seeds and took the husks off by hand. . After that I tried grinding in the mortar and pestle… it was virtually impossible to get anywhere near fine cocao, even for my hubby’s strong arms, so I swapped to our high-power coffee grinder. That did a reasonable, ‘stone-ground’ job. . Then I added a small amount of melted cacao butter, stirred and plopped the mix into my moulds, filling some of the chocolates’ middles with freshly grated orange zest, others with hazlenuts. . The taste and texture is the best of my attempts so far. The roasting isn’t burnt (success!) and grinding better means less need for cacao butter, which improves the flavour. The liquid chocolate was a bit thick, hence the little holes in the chocolates you can see…but I think chocolate tastes best with eye shut anyway, so who cares?! . See my story for some of the process pictures. . I already know what I want to change for the next batch. Just need to eat these ones first…

Comments on: Not perfect, but getting there! My latest #homemadechocolate saw me roasting the whole, raw cacao beans in our oven, rather than the cast iron pan. . I then cracked the seeds and took the husks off by hand. . After that I tried grinding in the mortar and pestle… it was virtually impossible to get anywhere near fine cocao, even for my hubby’s strong arms, so I swapped to our high-power coffee grinder. That did a reasonable, ‘stone-ground’ job. . Then I added a small amount of melted cacao butter, stirred and plopped the mix into my moulds, filling some of the chocolates’ middles with freshly grated orange zest, others with hazlenuts. . The taste and texture is the best of my attempts so far. The roasting isn’t burnt (success!) and grinding better means less need for cacao butter, which improves the flavour. The liquid chocolate was a bit thick, hence the little holes in the chocolates you can see…but I think chocolate tastes best with eye shut anyway, so who cares?! . See my story for some of the process pictures. . I already know what I want to change for the next batch. Just need to eat these ones first… https://ancestralkitchen.com/2021/01/09/https-www-instagram-com-p-cj02dv9givc/ Sat, 09 Jan 2021 13:32:08 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2