{"id":138,"date":"2011-04-30T10:34:03","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T10:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/suppersfromscratch.wordpress.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2013-04-21T20:59:58","modified_gmt":"2013-04-21T20:59:58","slug":"invention-my-dear-friends-is-93-perspiration-6-electricity-4-evaporation-and-2-butterscotch-ripple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple"},"content":{"rendered":"

With these iconic words ringing in my ears I set about to become the\u00a0chocolate king I had always dreamed off.<\/span><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t lie; I have grand ambitions to be the next Willy Wonka.<\/span><\/p>\n

So with these expectations of grandeur and the craving of chocolate\u00a0goodness (which has been building up as I watch everyone around me gorge\u00a0on mini eggs, cr\u00e8me eggs and a plethora of other chocolaty delights) I set\u00a0out on Easter Sunday to make my own chocolate \u2026 sans recipe.<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n If this was a Shakespearean tragedy I believe we would all analyse this to\u00a0be my fatal flaw. The inevitable thing that would lead me down a path I\u00a0could not turn back from, into the depths of the graveyard of broken\u00a0dreams in which I now reside.<\/span><\/p>\n

A touch dramatic?<\/span><\/p>\n

Well yes, probably \u2026 but it gives you a hint at how much was riding on this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get our feet back on the ground shall we.<\/span><\/p>\n

So Sunday morning arrives bright and sunny and filled with the hope of\u00a0summer. I was equally bright eyed and bushy tailed with the undamaged glow\u00a0of expectation like a school child on the first day of summer \u2013 I had so\u00a0much to look forward to.<\/span><\/p>\n

I got my cocoa beans (I used about 2oz for experiment 1) and set about\u00a0making chocolate (again, I remind you, without a recipe).<\/span><\/p>\n

The man I bought the (magic) beans off gave me this as a working structure for\u00a0making chocolate:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Roast the beans in a pan until you smell chocolate\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Crack the husks off the beans<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Grind the beans<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Add hot water<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I am sure this works for him and the South American chocolate makers,\u00a0however it categorically did not work for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

    For starters I probably roasted the beans for slightly too long (burnt\u00a0chocolate does not smell good). I kept them in a pan for about 15 mins (5\u00a0probably would have done the trick).\u00a0 As an aside I think the ones that\u00a0were done well didn\u2019t really change in appearance and the husks just\u00a0cracked off \u2013 by this I mean don\u2019t trust your instincts they\u2019re probably\u00a0wrong!<\/span><\/p>\n

    So stage two. Husking. This was actually fine. It was slightly fiddly with\u00a0the ones that were overdone, however I would happily do this stage again\u00a0exactly the same way.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Then we come to the grinding. For this I used my parents coffee grinder\u00a0and produced what I thought was a fairly thin paste, give or take a few\u00a0lumps.\u00a0 Again I was wrong. I think a grinder and a pestle and mortar\/two\u00a0stages of grinding could be the way forward for the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Then came the real downfall, adding the water. I added some boiling water\u00a0to the ground beans and got a lumpy paste.\u00a0 So I kept on adding and got a\u00a0watery mess. Then after slowly heating the mix I got to what looked like\u00a0melted chocolate. Success! I thought, but alas it was not meant to be \u00a0as the\u00a0mixture was still very grainy. The scientist in me reared its ugly head\u00a0and said \u2018Eureka! This is saturated so I need to add more liquid!\u2019, which I did\u00a0in the form of hot milk.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The outcome = still liquid, still granulated, still \ud83d\ude41<\/span><\/p>\n

    So I kept on heating, mixing, and hoping and then I gave up and poured the\u00a0liquidy mess into a plastic tub and crossed my fingers that it would\u00a0set.<\/span><\/p>\n

    I bet you can guess how this ends, and if you can\u2019t clearly my\u00a0overdramatic narrative has completely failed. Long story short \u2013 it\u00a0didn\u2019t!<\/span><\/p>\n

    It did however form itself into a thick paste- almost a solid \u2013 let\u2019s call\u00a0it a squidgy solid, and didn\u2019t actually taste that bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

    So instead of chocolate I made chocolate paste that got turned into hot\u00a0chocolate.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Experiment 1 = failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The oracle (my mother) very stoically said overcoming obstacles e.g. major\u00a0chocolate failure, was all part of the experience. However there was a\u00a0part of me that wanted to cry in despair at my broken dream of being a\u00a0chocolatier. The child in my head was having major tantrums and screaming\u00a0\u2018It\u2019s my favourite food off all and I can\u2019t make it From Scratch\u2019 I\u2019m a\u00a0failure!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

    THEN just as I was falling into the depths of utter despair (read\u00a0collapsed on to the floor in a tantrumy mess) I was wrenched out by a gift\u00a0from the food gods in the form of \u2018On food and cooking\u2019 by Harold McGee<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

    This book is a scientific exploration of different foods and the processes\u00a0behind making them. Unsurprisingly then it has the entire chocolate\u00a0making\u00a0process and describes the science behind it. The words smiled down like\u00a0nectar from a cocoa deity and with that I decided to shake off the\u00a0failure and start a fresh with batch number 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Alas roast lamb, venison casserole, simnel cake and other family meals got\u00a0in the way (and yes, if you\u2019re wondering we do class cake as a meal).<\/span><\/p>\n

    Nonetheless with the Royal wedding weekend now in full swing, what better way to\u00a0celebrate than a batch of chocolate truffles.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Experiment number 2: watch this space…<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/span><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    With these iconic words ringing in my ears I set about to become the\u00a0chocolate king I had always dreamed off. I won\u2019t lie; I have grand ambitions to be the next Willy Wonka. So with these expectations of grandeur and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140,138],"tags":[39],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppersfromscratch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}