PMAT Live! Episode 18 Making Chocolate From Scratch

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Jennifer Field

You might think that the title up there is incomplete. “Making chocolate whats?” you might ask. Chocolate eggs? Chocolate cake? Chocolate mousse?  No, dear friends, the title is correct. In the name of Crafting and Intrepid-ness, a local blogging friend, Amber from Fifty First Crafts and I teamed up to actually make chocolate from scratch. Roasting, winnowing, grinding, conching, etc. The whole nine yards. It was a lot of work (since we didn’t really know what we were doing, although we meant well) and a lot of fun (Amber is lovely and how could making chocolate not be fun?).

I’ve written a Lengthy Guest Post for the delightful Nelly from Cooking with Books that she will be posting on the 27th. I will link to her post then.  [Update: Link to Making Chocolate From Scratch on Cooking with Books] For now, enjoy the video and check out Amber’s process posts over at her place.

Have a lovely day.

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Related posts:

  1. PMAT Live! Episode 15: An Even Temper
  2. PMAT Live! Episode 3a: "Doin' the Pretzel Twist"
  3. PMAT Live! Episode 9: Behind the Curtain–Crepes Dentelle or Watch Jenni Make Many Mistakes Before Achieving Success
  4. PMAT Live! Episode 12 How to Make Puff Pastry
  5. PMAT Live! Episode 11: Cinnamon Rolls, Baby!

About Jennifer Field

Former Special Education teacher turned pastry chef. Now I marry my two passions by teaching people how to cook and bake through my website, blog and my video series.
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  • Roberta

    What is conching?

    • http://www.pastrychefonline.com onlinepastrychef

      I explain it more in depth in the guest post, but it’s basically a process by which the ground chocolate is further and further refined using rollers and controlled heat. Commercially, the process can take from a few to as many as 80 hours. It evenly distributes the cocoa butter throughout the chocolate mass so that it coats all the wee chocolate particles. Conching makes for a smoother, creamier, mellower finished product. Apparently, the earliest models looked like conch shells. (although it is pronounced conch and not conk).

  • http://chocolatechocolatemorechocolate.blogspot.com/ Joan Hayes@chocolate and more

    wow, I’m impressed! I will never, ever, attempt to make chocolate but so glad I got to watch you do it. I’ve always loved chocolate but never even thought about trying to make myself, good thing, not a simple process. Thanks for posting this!

    • http://www.pastrychefonline.com onlinepastrychef

      Never say never, Joan!! ;)

  • http://vondelicious.blogspot.com/ Von

    Making chocolate….what?!?! haha……
    This is so cool- it looks like heaps of fun! I would never have thought it would be possible to make chocolate from scratch at home :) How does homemade chocolate taste in comparison to store bought??

    • http://www.pastrychefonline.com onlinepastrychef

      Hi, Von. :) The flavor is pretty amazing–very vibrant and fresh, although the chocolate isn’t nearly as refined as store bought. I would def make this again and use it for truffles or even in a cake or brownie batter. Yum!

    • daijaarandall

      at least yours does lol!

  • http://croquecamille.wordpress.com Camille

    Very Cool! I had no idea you could make chocolate at home (although considering I don’t have a small army of appliances at my beck and call, I’d probably have a hard time of it). :)