This is quite likely the dream project of many children, as well
as a few of their mothers! But be warned, making chocolate is a
finicky business, and you won't be turning out huge bars of
Toblerone. In fact, it might be a good idea to purchase some
inexpensive molds for small, flat decorative chocolate shapes
like flowers, animals, and birds. These aren't too hard to find,
and are usually available around Easter and Valentine's. The
chocolate you make will be pure chocolate, not the chocolates
you get in a gift box. That takes even more time and patience
than either Mom or the kids may have. Start your project with
raw cocoa beans, which can be found through many online sites.
Beans need to be roasted by spreading them in a single layer on
a pan, and leaving them in the oven for approximately 30 minutes
at 400F degrees. Allow them to cool, and then peel off the
husks, which is a really fiddly job.
Next, you'll want to break them up. Spreading them out on a tea
towel, placing another over top and using a hammer will work,
but possibly too well. A more restrained and easy to control way
of breaking them into pieces is with a mortar and pestle. Once
you have pieces, put them in a clean pepper or other mill and
grind them. Be careful though, because as the bits get smaller,
they tend to liquefy. Grind just to the point where you can put
them back in a dish and use the mortar and pestle again for the
final mashing.
By now you have a mush. Heat the dish in a pan of water, and
then grind a little more in the mortar. It should have reached a
fairly smooth consistency after this stage. Now you can add a
drop of mint flavoring, and your sugar. A rule of thumb is 1/2
cup sugar per pound of cocoa beans processed, but you may want
to start out with less, in order to see how sweet it gets. Pour
into molds, and you have pure chocolate!
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