Chocolate bars from scratch

(Robert Kuhar) #1

Chocolate%20Bar%202
Chocolate Bar 2.jpg3264×2448 1.32 MB

1 1/2 Cup - Cacao Butter

1 1/4 Cup - Cacao Powder

Sweetener to taste (I recommend Swerve Confectioners Powder)

  1. Make a bain-marie by fitting a glass or ceramic bowl over a saucepan of water. Do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the actual water. Bring the water to the boil then turn it down to a simmer. Very slowly melt the cacao butter in the bowl of the bain-marie. Take the cacao butter to no higher than 40–45°C/104–113°F. If you think it is getting too hot but hasn’t all melted, take it off the heat to finish melting. It is important not to overheat it or the chocolate will taste grainy and be ‘bloomed’, with a white cloudy appearance.
    When the cacao butter has melted and is at around 40–45°C/104–113°F, add the rest of the ingredients. This should lower the temperature and we now want to bring it down to 28–30°C/82–86°F; just above or below will be fine.

  2. Blend all the ingredients together with a hand-held blender to get rid of any cacao powder lumps and until velvety smooth and glossy. Do not over-blend or the chocolate will stiffen too much. If it is too stiff, place the bowl back over the hot water and stir gently for a minute or so then remove from the heat.

  3. Keep stirring the chocolate gently to cool it then, when around 28–30°C/82–86°F, pour it into a silicon mold. Add your toppings. Then refrigerate until hard.

Toppings I used are:

  • Sea salt and almond slices
  • Instant coffee
  • Orange oil and hot chili
(Ethan) #2

I’m going to try this with some glycine as a sweetener. My wife doesn’t like swerve, so I’d like to make a 95% dark and maybe even allow a tiny 1g per serving of sugar

(Sophie) #3

OMG, I feel another SV project coming on!

(Jan) #4

So pretty! I have a dumb question… is cacao powder = cocoa powder? And is there a difference between regular & dutch process in this instance?

(Rob) #5

Great recipe and instructions…

Question - sounds like you need a thermometer to not screw this up? Do you need a fancy thermopen or can you get away with a cheaper rip off one?

A more trivial question… I always understood that what you are using here is a double boiler (using steam to melt the items above, not the water itself) and a Bain-marie is a water bath where the cooking vessel IS in contact with the water to regulate temperature for a custard, panna cotta, etc. (though steam also regulates humidity).

(Robert Kuhar) #6

Cheap works. Just calibrate it. Once it hits 95 take it off the heat.

(Robert Kuhar) #7

Both work I just tried it!

(Robert Kuhar) #8

Yeah honestly swerve leaves a grainy texture im not a fan of.

(Miss E) #9

cocoa powder is usyally a little lighter and sometimes has sugar