Making chocolate bars the Belize way

Chocolate making

The beans come from Punta Gorda. They grow on trees in pods. Some are all different colours, like red, yellow and green. The pods grow just like flowers, they bloom, they blossom, they grow. In every pod there are usually 30-60 beans. The local farmer cuts the pods off then he cuts them open. The farmer puts the beans in boxes to ferment. After a while liquid starts to come out of the beans. This is called Kakaw wine. The farmer then leaves the beans out to dry in the sun.

The beans are roasted for 15 min or so. I don’t really think you need a specific oven to roast the beans as Dad used to experiment in the kitchen oven. The beans are roasted so they become less bitter and full of flavour.

When you separate the nibs from the shells you use a winnower. The winnower blows all the shells away then you’re left with the nibs.

Then you make the chocolate liquor, the machine kind of does it for you. It’s a grinding machine and the nibs are in it for a day as the natural oils are released. You use some of the chocolate liquor for the press. A little bit of strength then voilà out comes a press cake and cocoa butter.

The chocolate is almost ready. Some cocoa butter is added to the rest of the liquor and this is ground some more and I think thats it, wait don’t forget the sugar in the chocolate.

Next the chocolate is tempered. Tempering means putting the chocolate in a cool room and moving it around to make it shiny and melt in your mouth. Dad sometimes does this by hand and sometimes by machine. When Dad does it by hand it looks like he’s painting the marble block with chocolate. This has to be done in a cold place and that’s not always easy in Belize.

Once the chocolate is tempered, it is poured into moulds. This has to be done at body temperature and a ‘gun’ is used to check . I think it would be easier to use my finger to check the temperature.

The Belize Chocolate Company uses real flavours like pineapple, orange, mango, banana, coconut… all things with a Belizean taste. These are added to the runny chocolate in the mould before it sets. My favourite is pineapple.

When it’s set, the bars come out of the mould and Abi wraps them. She writes on the wrapper so that each bar can be traced back to where it’s come from.

To eat it, you can nibble it .. although putting it in your mouth straight away can also be fun.