We went to a chocolate Museum with our grandparents on Valentine's Day . We learned about cacao and how it grows. We learned how Mayans use chocolate in their traditional ways. We discovered that chocolate making is a complicated process. The best part was making our own chocolate with different flavors.
The cacao pods grow on trees in tropical areas. It takes 4- 6 years for the tree to start producing fruit. The cacao flower is so small it gets pollinated by mosquitos. Cacao pods are about the size of a small football and are red,orange or yellow. There is no machine that harvests cacao pods; it is done by hand. Each cacao pod contains 20-60 cacao beans.
Once the cacao pods are ripe, it is time to start the process of making chocolate. First, break open the pods. Next, ferment the beans for five days in a wooden box with banana leaves. After the beans are fermented, they are dried for 1 month or a month and a half. When the beans’ humidity level is below 10%, they can be roasted. The beans are roasted at 250 C for 20 minutes until they start to pop. The next step is to remove the outer shell to get the cocoa nibs (beans). The cocoa nibs are not very tasty; they’re bitter. The next step is to make the cocoa butter. To make cocoa butter, you grind up the cocoa beans and make heat. Heat creates friction which causes the oils inside the cocoa beans to be released. The thick rich paste is called cocoa butter. The next step is to separate the cocoa powder from the cocoa butter. The final step in making chocolate is to mix sugar with the cocoa powder and the pure cocoa butter. The three simple ingredients are heated, mixed, and cooled twice to make the chocolate rich and creamy.
The Mayans made many uses of the cocoa butter and ground cocoa beans in their lifestyle. They made drinks out of chocolate and used it in ceremonies honoring their gods. Cocoa butter was used as after bite for mosquitoes. We got to taste several different traditional cocoa drinks.
After learning about the history and process of chocolate, we got to make our own chocolate candy. We could either use 70% cacao dark chocolate or 25% cacao milk chocolate. Since it was Valentine's Day, I made 15 mini chocolate hearts with smiley faces on them. There were some very interesting ingredients which you could add to your chocolate. I chose to make one each of peanut, almond, coconut, crystallized orange peel, cinnamon, coffee beans, chili pepper, mint, licorice, sea salt, ginger, cardamom, and sprinkles (of course).
We had a fun afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa at the chocolate Museum. We learned a lot and we got to make our own Valentine's Day chocolate.
No comments:
Post a Comment