16 Aug How To Make HomeMade Chocolates?
Smooth creamy and luscious- From children to adults, all flip over it. It is a very versatile product that comes in various flavours, shapes and forms. Yes, Indeed! I am talking about chocolates, the world’s favourite food. You can use the dark, milk or even white chocolates and turn it into chocolate bars, truffles, chocolate chips, or other tasty drinks and treats. Here, I will just walk through the steps and process of how to make homemade chocolates.
Ingredients & Supplies
Well, we have seen how you can even make chocolate bars at home. But that would require cocoa butter, cocoa powder, milk powder, sugar or even vanilla extract as required for the chocolate bars that you want to make from the scratch.
However, to make it easier for us, there are compound chocolate bars in the market, which you can melt to create chocolates of your flavour. I tried my hand at chocolate making from home and I must say it came out well for an amateur.
Things I Used
I will first tell you what all the ingredients and tools I used. First, I used a knife to chop the chocolate into more or less equal pieces, if it is pliable you can just use your hand and break it. Next, comes two vessels to melt the chocolate. While, many vouches for the microwave as an easy option to melt chocolate, I used the age-old double boiling method. Hence, the two steel vessels.
Then, comes the chocolate mould of your desired shape. I used the heart-shaped silicone chocolate mould, which comes with 15 cavities. Finally, some may use the scraper to remove the excess chocolate. However, since I didn’t have any. I have not used it.
Know Your Ingredients
Well, I have already informed you that there are various ways to make chocolates at home. Here, I used the easiest and convenient method, so the ingredients I used were accordingly.
I made centre filled chocolate. So, the ingredients I used for this is very limited, the milk chocolate bar and then the ingredients for filling the chocolate. I used blackcurrant crush and almonds to fill the chocolates.
You can make the fillings of your choice as there are other flavoured crushes or jams available in the market. The options are endless actually, you can also add dry fruits or nuts of your choice. You could as well make the puree of your choice using fruits like strawberry, mangoes or grapes as you like for the filling.
Same as you can choose the filling of your preference, you can also use the compound chocolate as you like, from the dark, milk or white chocolates. Dark chocolate, also known as plain chocolate is actually said to be chocolates with a higher concentration of cocoa butter and less of milk. If preferred you can make dark chocolate without any milk at all, thus making it the best option for people who can’t or don’t want to consume milk.
Though similar to dark chocolate, milk chocolate includes milk in the form of liquid, powder or condensed milk. Milk chocolate is creamy and smooth with melt in your mouth texture. It is a process called conching (that requires carefully combining all the ingredients together) that gives the chocolate the soft, velvety and smooth texture.
Then there is white chocolate, which is made of sugar, milk and cocoa butter. But, it does not contain any cocoa solids. It also remains solid at room temperature.
HomeMade Chocolate -The Process
Now, once you have the ingredients you require you can start making the chocolates. See below, the ingredients I used.
- 200 gm milk chocolate bar (at room temperature)
- 1 tablespoon black currant crush (Here, I used Mapro Crush from Big Basket)
- 5-6 almonds
First of all, I broke the chocolates into somewhat equal pieces. You can also chop them using a knife or use a grater and grate them (as you prefer). Then, I used the double boil method to melt the chocolate. You might need a double boiler for that. But, don’t worry. I just used two vessels, for the process.
I used a regular steel vessel and filled a bit of water in it and kept it on the gas top to boil. Remember that I had kept the temperature high for this step. Then, for the top part of the double boiler, I used another vessel that would fit in the mouth of the vessel below. Most people use heat resistant glass bowls for this, but I just used a steel saucepan. Make sure the top vessel or bowl is not touching the water, or the chocolate will burn.
Place the vessel into the bottom one and make sure the water isn’t touching the top bowl. Pour out some water if the water is touching the bowl. Once the water started to boil, I reduced the heat and put it on low/medium or sim, and then placed the chocolates in the top vessel to melt. Use a metal spoon or whisk to stir the chocolate continuously till it melts completely.
Tempering The Chocolate & What Follows
After the chocolate has melted completely and there are no lumps in it, you can remove the bowl from gas and let it cool to room temperature. The process is called tempering the chocolate. This helps to give the chocolate that smooth glossy finish. Keeping the bowl of melted chocolate on your kitchen top, you just keep whisking or stirring it till it cools down to the desired temperature.
Then I poured the melted chocolate into the cavities of the mould and toppled it head down to remove the excess chocolate. I also manipulated the silicon mould so that the chocolate-coated all the walls of the cavity. Then, I popped it into the fridge for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, I kept the ingredients for the filling ready. Then, I took out the mould from the fridge and added a drop or two of the crush into some of the cavities and the almonds into the other. Then, I sealed the top of each cavity with more of the melted chocolate, making sure to coat the side walls. You can also remove the excess chocolates as before. This is the stage when a scraper comes in real handy.
Finally, in it goes to the fridge again for ten-fifteen minute more and after that, you can topple the silicon mould upside down on a plate to de-mould the chocolates. And what you get is delicious and smooth homemade chocolates, same as or even better than your store brought ones.
Now, you have learnt how to make homemade chocolates….go grab the ingredients and enjoy your chocolates. Get the recipe to make Peanut Butter Chocolates here.
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