Nothing wrong with preferring milk chocolate, but Cadbury is the Hershey’s of milk chocolate. I swear the milk tastes like it’s already turned!
I’ve never tried it, but chocolate and Marmite is also a thing:
Chocolate cake with Marmite caramel buttercream:
4 Likes
!!!
Must! Procure!! Immediately!!!
3 Likes
It’s a culture that hasn’t existed in centuries. The implication is pretty clear.
macadamia have a really strong flavor, so strong that many people can’t eat them. do you really not taste it?
maybe it is one of those things not everyone can taste…
While I regularly eat 100% black coco drops, they are very very very different from 100% chocolate which I also eat. The difference is a process called conching and refining, that is the hard part to do right small small scale.
Very true. although i quite enjoy tempering chocolate, either by hand on marble, or using the tempering machine i bought. (yeah i know you probably made your own machine! 
haha)
@crenquis & @jsroberts - OMG Marmite or Vegimite and chocolate…i’m looking forward to trying both of those now! @telecinese - I’ll skip the fresh hot cup of of foamy Urinal drink though.
4 Likes
I am in noooo way being elitist :D. What kind of tempering machine do you have? I have only ever seen it done on marble, and never tempered myself.
Edit
Oh jebus,Google image search japhroaig!
What the heck is the difference between the vertical rotary ones and the machines that look like ice cream makers?
1 Like
I bought a modified idli grinder which seems to do the trick. The part of chocolate making that, so far, I haven’t really got a hang of is tempering.
1 Like
I disagree, I think it’s colonial propaganda. The people, the language, and the culture exist today.
If the colonial agenda is more meaningful to you than the actual people, then that’s your own look out.
Oh crap, my machinist friend was right!!
So I had forgot the term was conching, I just described it as crushing. Shawn, the machinist, intuitively said for an ideal crush you don’t want belts or gears above, and I stated Well you don’t want an axle coming up from below, so what do you do?
Stationary grinding wheels and you turn the vessel. As that one appears to do.
I am still a proponent of spring pressure and not leverage, but we will see.
Another thought we had was instead of stainless or granite… What about iron weights?
1 Like
What did/do the “Aztecs” do?
Grind cocoa up with nuts and spices, and drink it.
(I think this is the article)
Err, that is a redux, but it links to the original. This is closer to the original of chocolate as food.
1 Like
It’s more of a process rather than a mechanical device.
Temperature and stretch to emulsify the solids, improve texture, and create an attractive surface when set at room temp, right? (Have I proven I’m not a chocolatier?)
1 Like
Interesting. Source?
Iron tends to corrode, and acts as a catalyst that could cause some changes in the chemistry; grinding may cause quite high temperatures in small scales which further promotes the reactivity. Coating may work but the grinding action may wear it down, exposing the metal and contaminating the chocolate as a double-whammy.
I’d stick with the stainless or ceramics (granite counts as a sort of composite oxide ceramics). You may get away with stainless-plated iron, though.
Huh. I guess I have research.
You may try to use a single wheel to save the cost, or use hollow wheels (sections of stainless pipe with covered sides? Perhaps weld a bar across the pipe on both sides, to carry the bearing, and seal the sides with thinner sheetmetal?) pressed down with springs. Solid-material wheels will need some cheap material (so stainless for a solid wheel is straight out and granite is a good bet - could a local stone cutter who makes e.g. the tombstones do the job?).
Source of what? The people still live there, FFS. So a few thousands Spaniards came over centuries ago, they’re dead now. Most of the people are several percent European, and mostly indigenous. With many people - millions - still living in fully indigenous communities and contexts. I have never done any research on the culture, but what reading I have done strongly suggests a whitewashing of the larger groups, perhaps to erode their influence. The Aztec culture supposedly disappeared, because they are really called Mēxihcah. And even Mēxihcah are often referred to as being an extinct group, despite having considerable numbers, because they have been re-classified into numerous groups of Nahua peoples. I don’t know if these changes in labelling might have been prompted by the indigenous people themselves (unlikely, I am guessing), or publicized by outsiders. The game seems to be to rename them to explain them away, like anthropological gerrymandering.
You are reading. My.mind. 3" stainless pipe, roughed up, and either springs or leverage for weight.
1 Like
Just a small personal one, because I’m no pro and not making chocolates for sale, just for yum.
This is the machine, but the photo isn’t mine.
Basically chocolate can re-crystallize 6 different ways, and only one of those ways makes a hard product that doesn’t bloom (white crystals on the surface) or melt at room temp. The key is to cool it in such a way as to encourage the type of re-crystallization that is optimal, has a hard snap, is glossy, and resists melting or blooming. The EASIEST way is with a machine that precisely controls the temperature and also adding a piece of tempered chocolate to the vat to at the end SEED the re-crystallization process. It triggers a cascade of crystallization and is kinda a “cheat” that most chocolatiers use. Hand tempering is finicky and time consuming, but worth learning if you plan on going deep into the chocolate making arts.
just the way it cools and keeps the chocolate moving, the vertical rotary ones tend to be larger scale.
In high end conching, they actually separate the coco butter and cocoa solids and recombine them later in the process in the desired proportions with the other ingredients such as sugar and dairy. This also is how we get cocoa powder and white cocoa butter. dutching is the process of alkalizing cocoa powder and is often done for hot chocolate, etc.
god i love chocolate. 
i’ve really been into Black Cocoa Butter lately, which is pure chocolate, nothing added. If you like 99% or 100% chocolate then it is worth giving black cocoa butter a try.
7 Likes
