The Science of Chocolate

One of the most popular food in the world is chocolate. We buy them in shops in forms of chocolate bars, chocolate lollies, chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, chocolate drinks and many more. We do enjoy eating and drinking chocolate. Our class is curious of how chocolate is made.  We researched and inquired about it---

The science of chocolate

By. Joshua J

Ingredients: cocoa, milk, lecithin, sugar,nibs, cocoa butter and cocoa powder

The creation of chocolate is a very complex process. It all starts with the cocoa bean tree. Cocoa trees grow in warm places close to the equator but they mainly grow in West Africa. The trees grow cocoa pods that look like a giant raisin and when you pick a cocoa pod you extract the small beans which are left out to develop the flavour when exposed to the sun. When cocoa beans are done developing the flavour, they are shipped to countries of the world, to be made into chocolate through factories. Once the cocoa is taken out of the shell they are blended, cleaned, dried, broken and leaving the nibs.

Then the nibs are grounded into a big cocoa mass. The mass is then processed into cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Most chocolates like milk chocolate, dark chocolate and chocolate with nuts use all these ingredients including sugar, milk and lecithin but the white chocolate uses everything except the cocoa powder and cocoa mass.  It only needs the cocoa butter. Then all the ingredients are mixed and put in a course of rollers that puts all the ingredients together which makes the perfect flavour that everyone loves.

The final step is conching. Conching is a process where the mixture is placed in a large surface scraping the mixture to make the surface of the chocolate look smooth. But just before that the melted chocolate is put in a series of heating and cooling which is called tempering. The final flavour is developed when the chocolate is blended once again in a large tank. After that the chocolate is made into blocks and the machine wraps and cover the chocolate.

Making Chocolate

By: Liezl

Ingredients:

• Cocoa Beans
• Milk
• Sugar
• Lecithin
• Nibs

Method:

1. It all starts with cocoa beans. Cocoa beans grow in places that are warm and are near to the equator. Nearly 70% of cocoa trees grow in West Africa.
2. Next, they gather all the cocoa beans and leave it under the sun to dry up which helps with the flavour of the chocolate.
3. Then the beans are shipped to different districts so that it can be made into chocolate.
4. Once the cocoa beans have arrived into their destination, they are blended, cleaned, dried and when their shells have come off, the nibs will be the only thing left. The nibs are the raw ingredient of the chocolate.
5. The nibs are then grounded into a liquid mass. Then the liquid mass is then processed so that it can make cocoa powder and cocoa butter.
6. Milk, sugar and lecithin is added to the liquid mass and it is then put through many rollers so that it can be a particular size.
7. After that, the chocolate goes through the final procedure. This procedure is called ‘conching’. The ingredients are finally placed and blended in a big tank for the development of the flavour.
8. When the chocolate has finished blending, it is time to temper the chocolate. The chocolate is placed in a machinery in which it is mixed together.
9. After all the tempering, they finally mould the chocolate into different shapes or even blocks of chocolate. Then it is ready to be shipped to different nations.