How to make chocolate like the Italians

Chocolate is the primary ingredient in many Italian desserts, but the craving for chocolate is a universal phenomenon. Kids ask for chocolate at an early age, and the love of chocolate fails to cease into adulthood. Its scientific name is ‘Theobroma Cacao’, which in Greek means 'Food of Gods'. So there is no surprise why this dark-colored delight is liked so much by mere mortals, too.

Chocolate is a mixture of cocoa butter, cocoa paste and sugar. To prepare chocolate, you start off by roasting the cocoa beans at temperatures around 140 degrees Celcius for 25 minutes. You can stop roasting the beans when they start to crack. Now break the beans into nibs and remove the husks. You can use a hammer to crack the beans and remove the husks manually if they are in small quantity.

The next step is to grind these nibs into liquer; ordinary juicers will not suffice—Italians used specific equipment made for chocolate. Put the nibs into the juicer in small quantities; the husk will get separated when it comes through the spout.

You will really start to see the characteristics of chocolate when you ‘conch’ and refine the cocoa liquer. Refining filters the solid cocoa and sugar crystals. To conch the cocoa, melt it with cocoa butter in oven at about 120 Farenheit, add non-fat dry milk powder, sugar, lecithin and a vanilla pod. Continue refining for another 10 hours or more until it starts to taste smooth and balanced. Then make the chocolate shiny by tempering it. There are machines available just for this purpose, or you can do it yourself.

You are now ready to mold it into any which shape. Pour the chocolate in your mold at 90 degrees, then let it harden at room temperature. Remove it from the mold when it becomes hardened, then eat it right away or wrap it in foil or plastic to save for later!