How Chocolate Is Made? From Bean To Bar…

Have you ever wondered how chocolate actually comes to be? It’s actually the result of a very interesting process from bean to bar…

1. As we know, chocolate comes from the cocoa bean. A lesser-known fact is that the cocoa bean comes from the cocoa pod, which comes from the cacao tree. The cocoa pods are harvested from the tree and once on the ground, split and scraped until all of the cocoa beans have been extracted. This is the raw material of chocolate, and this is what gets sent to the processing plant.

2. Depending on how organic (or expensive) the chocolate is going to be, some chocolatiers prefer to use cocoa beans which have been naturally dried by the heat of the sun for up to a week. Once at the factory and sorted for any twigs, branches and leaves; the cocoa beans are roasted in large ovens much like coffee beans are. The roasting has a big say in how the chocolate will taste, with a range of temperatures and times stretching from 210-290F and half hour to two hours.

3. Once roasted, the beans are crushed to remove the ‘nib.’ Think of this as the same process as you would remove the shell from a nut, casting aside the shell and being left with the nut, or ‘nib’ of the cocoa bean. These nibs are the first part of the process where you would be able to recognise a chocolatey taste, but you’d also be left with a very bitter tongue. Some more refinement is needed!

4. The nibs are now milled, crushed and ground until they’ve liquefied into a paste which is called cocoa liquor. Still very bitter, this needs to be mixed with a number of things which change depending upon the chocolatier. If they were to be making dark chocolate, they would maintain 70% of the mixture to be cocoa. For milk chocolate, 40% would have to remain as cocoa liquor and for white chocolate, 33% would be kept and mixed with a number of other ingredients. Sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla and milk are popular choices and after these have all been combined, you’d be left with something very close to chocolate. But not quite…

5. To smoothen out the texture of the mixture, steel rollers are used to crush any remaining grains of sugar, nibs or other hard ingredients. Once refined, the mixture is ‘conched’ which involves further kneading, smoothing and heating to produce the highest quality and texture of chocolate. The highest quality chocolate can sometimes be continually conched for weeks!

6. Tempering comes next, which involves the stirring, cooling and heating the mixture; repeatedly. Once this has been achieved, it’s ready for moulds and to finally become your chocolate bar, your Easter Egg or the flow of your chocolate fountain!