I LOVE CHOCOLATES AND THIS IS HOW THEY ARE MADE...

I love chocolates from my childhood and im crazy about it, so i just thought i should know how these chocolates are made and thought of sharing this with everyone

Chocolate is made from the cocoa bean, found in pods, growing from the trunk and lower branches of the Cacao Tree, Latin name 'Theobroma Cacao' meaning "food of the gods".



HOW CHOCOLATES ARE MADE

Producing chocolate is a time consuming and complicated process, but here is a simplified guide which i hope you will find easy to understand:


-The first step is the harvesting of the cocoa pods containing the cocoa beans.

-The Pods are crushed and the beans and surrounding pulp extracted and fermented naturally for about six days in either open heaps or boxes after which the beans are dried.

-The finest chocolate is produced when the drying process is done naturally by the sun for 7 days or more.

-Accelerated or artificial drying is quicker, but produces inferior quality chocolate, mainly used in mass produced products and cake coverings.

-The next process is shared with coffee in that the beans are first graded, then roasted. Roasting times depend on the type and size of the beans, like coffee this can also affect the final flavour of the chocolate.

-Light Crushing separates the kernel or 'Nib' from the shell or husk (like shelling a nut), the husk is then separated or 'winnowed' out and discarded.

-At this stage most manufacturers put the Cocoa Nibs through an alkalisation process to help develop flavour and colour. However, some purists producing the finest chocolate prefer to rely on the quality of the beans and natural processing to produce the best colour and flavour.

-The nibs, which are very high in fat or cocoa butter, are then finely milled and liquefy in the heat produced by the milling process to produce cocoa liquor. When cocoa liquor, otherwise known as cocoa mass, is allowed to cool and solidify.

-At this point the manufacturing process splits according to the final product. If the end product is chocolate, some of the cocoa liquor is reserved, the rest is pressed to extract the cocoa butter leaving a solid residue called press cake. Press cake is usually kibbled or finely ground to produce the product known to consumers as Cocoa Powder.

The retained Cocoa Liquor and/or solid Cocoa Mass is blended with Chocolate Butter and other ingredients to produce the various types of chocolate as follows:

BLENDING

Cocoa Liquor or Cocoa Mass is blended back with cocoa butter in varying quantities to make different types of chocolate. The finest plain or dark chocolate should contain 70% Cocoa or more, whereas the best Milk Chocolate contains 30% or more Cocoa and the best White Chocolate contains 30% or more Cocoa Butter. In addition most chocolate contains a sweetener, usually sugar, this is because without some kind of sweetener, chocolate would be so bitter as to be virtually inedible. The other most commonly added ingredients are natural Vanilla for flavour (artificial Vanilla or 'Vanillin' is often added to mass produced chocolate because it's cheaper), and Lethicin (usually made from Soya) as an emulsifier.

Plain Dark Chocolate contains:

-70%+ Cocoa solids (cocoa mass and cocoa butter), 29% sugar, vegetable Lethicin and Vanilla.

Milk Chocolate contains:

-40% Cocoa Solids (cocoa butter and cocoa mass), 37% sugar, 20% whole milk powder, Lactose, vegetable Lethicin and Vanilla.

White Chocolate contains:

-49% sugar, 33% cocoa butter, 18% whole dried milk and whey powder, vegetable Lethicin and Vanilla.

Different manufacturers use different variations of the above formulas.
Inferior and/or mass produced chocolate generally contains much less cocoa solids, (as low as 7% in some cases), with most or all of the chocolate butter replaced by vegetable oil or other fat. In fact, the low or virtually non-existent cocoa content of these "Brand Name" and other chocolate products means that strictly speaking, they should not really be classed as chocolate at all, as they are really chocolate flavoured sweets.

REFINING AND CONCHING

The blended Chocolate then goes through a refining process involving heavy rollers, this grinds down and blends the particles to smooth and improve the texture.

Mostly, but not always, this is followed by the penultimate process called “conching”, a conch is a type of container in which the refined and blended chocolate mass is continually kneaded and further smoothed, the fractional heat produced by this process keeps the chocolate liquid. The length of time given to the conching process determines the final smoothness and quality of chocolate. The finest chocolate is conched for a minimum of a week. After the process is completed the chocolate is stored in heated tanks at about 46°c (115°f), ready for the final process called Tempering.

TEMPERING

Because cocoa butter exhibits a or unstable (polymorphous) crystal structure, the chocolate must go through a very precise cycle of heating and cooling to encourage the stable crystal formation needed to produce the desirable properties for good tasty chocolate. This final process is called Tempering.

This is the method we use, first, we melt the chocolate at about 46°c (115°f), the chocolate is then cooled to between 29°c (84°f) and 31°c (88°f) and warmed up again to between 30°c (86°f) and 32°c (90°f), it can then be held 'in temper' at this temperature for use as required.

The chocolate is now ready for use as coverture, for coating chocolates, chocolate biscuits and other coated products, or poured into moulds and cooled for sale as the finished product such as solid chocolate bars. But every time it is allowed to harden and is re-melted it will have to be re-tempered again.

Well tempered chocolate has a good shiny gloss, a snappy or brittle bite and a smooth tender melt on the tongue, coating the palate with long lasting flavour and generally tasting wonderful.

Yummy!!! I wish I worked in a chocolate factory so that Icould make chocolates on my own and have them. Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! I have tasted American, Swiz chocolates but nothing can beat our Indian chocolates like Dairy Milk, Five Star, Kit-Kat, Temptations and many more...