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Post by max3732 on Jan 12, 2020 14:07:14 GMT -5
The chocolate I'm making now is extremely special to me as it's the first time I've been able to use my own home grown beans in any significant way when make chocolate. I live in an area that is further north than where the cocooa tree should grow, but I've stuck with it and had a record yield this year with over 10 pods!
My home made chocolate is in the Melanger right now and will be finished tomorrow. I'd like to make something to share with 4 people that incorporates the chocolate in a way you can taste the uniqueness of chocolate made from my own trees. I'm afraid of ruining the chocolate by messing up tempering if I went right for a bar and would rather make some kind of dessert. I'm thinking maybe a brownie or lava cake. Any other ideas or specific recipes?
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Post by Ben on Jan 13, 2020 7:35:34 GMT -5
A bar would be the best way to really showcase the flavor of your cacao. You don't need to worry about ruining the chocolate if you don't get it tempered correctly. If so, just remelt it and try again.
Did you ferment the cacao?
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Post by max3732 on Jan 13, 2020 8:14:56 GMT -5
A bar would be the best way to really showcase the flavor of your cacao. You don't need to worry about ruining the chocolate if you don't get it tempered correctly. If so, just remelt it and try again. Did you ferment the cacao? OK, I'm going to try a bar using the hair dryer method to temper. Yes I fermented the cacao with slightly under 1/4 tsp of yeast at 95 F for 3 days then stirred it and did 113 F for 3 days. The only problem I had was my oven thermometer showed a lower temperature than the instant read probe thermometer so I didn't quite know which was right. My oven has a dehydrate function so I dehydrated it for several hours till it felt completely dry and then sun dried it too. After that I followed the instructions on here for oven baking and used the champion juicer to crack and a hair dryer to winnow. So I'm really excited to see how it all turns out right from my own trees!
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Post by Ben on Jan 13, 2020 12:24:45 GMT -5
Good luck! Let us know how it turns out. Where are you located?
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Post by max3732 on Jan 13, 2020 16:49:56 GMT -5
Good luck! Let us know how it turns out. Where are you located? It turned out really well and is by far the best tasking chocolate I've ever had! It has a very distinctive fruity flavor to it that I haven't tasted in any other chocolate. You were absolutely right that the bars are a better choice than baking some kind of dessert. Tempering made me a bit nervous, but I was pleasantly surprised that it worked for the most part. The top of the chocolate bloomed slightly, but when I took it out of the mold the other side looked perfect and the chocolate has a great feel and perfect snap. For some reason my chocolate was also much thicker than I was expecting. Even when I first took it out of the Melanger it didn't run like in the tempering video. So when I cooled it close to 82 using a fan it became next to impossible to stir so I put the hair dryer on it and got it up to 88. I really appreciate all the information you've put on the chocolate alchemy website and the internet. Without that I don't think I could have done it. I'm located in South Florida, which I know is too far north for the trees, but I'm doing my best. I wish I had better info on how to get more yield from the trees. Like I mentioned this is the first year I've had enough pods to make my home grown beans a significant portion of the chocolate.
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Post by mark on Jan 13, 2020 21:04:29 GMT -5
This is such a great little story! Clearly you can grow cacao in South Florida and make chocolate from it, you've just shown that. 😊
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Post by Ben on Jan 14, 2020 9:28:37 GMT -5
That's awesome! I'm glad it turned out so well.
For the thickness, you may want to look into drying the cacao longer. Generally, drying takes several days. I'm not sure how drying outside in the sun compares to using a dehydrator, but maybe try dehydrating for 24 hours and then see if the resultant chocolate has a lower viscosity.
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