How to Make Chocolate. © Alyson Thomas 2014
During the Eat Retreat weekend, our days were filled with food demonstrations, information sessions, and how-tos. One of the highlights was helping to make chocolate, from the cacao beans to bar, with the affable Todd of Dandelion Chocolate. They quite literally travel the world in search of the best cacao beans, which they then turn into chocolate bars at their factory on a now-hopping stretch of Valencia Street in San Francisco. What really makes this chocolate mind-blowingly awesome to my now blown-mind is that Dandelion only uses cacao and sugar in their delicious bars. No added cocoa butter, milk solids, or stabilizers. Todd schlepped up some chocolate making equipment to do a small-scale demo of the chocolate making process for Eat Retreat. And since I draw food and such, I took notes like this:
Photo by Jen Pelka
Todd had us sort through the beans, discarding any oddballs or debris. Then the pile of beans was placed into a coffee roaster, and then into a toaster oven. This cracks the beans, allowing the outer husks to be removed from the nib. While the beans roasted, Todd passed around samples of three of their single-origin bars. I was one of the few fruity chocolate fans in the room, so I adored the Madagascar bar. It had a lot of citrus flavors, with one attendee comparing it to a lambic beer. Dead on. And with an insanely long finish. (Immediately upon my return, I picked up a bar for Steve, who declared it “absolutely the best chocolate I have ever had.” So there’s that.) It was fascinating to have such different flavors of chocolate, all just coming from the beans and the fermentation process. At their cafe in San Francisco, you can get flights of brownies, each using a different chocolate varietal.
Photo by Lauren Chandler
After roasting, the now amazing-smelling beans were cracked in a small grain mill used by home brewers. The papery husks were removed in a process called winnowing, using a shop vac. After that, the beans are ground in a melanger for several days, with sugar eventually added in. This makes the final chocolate bar, after it is tempered and left to cool.
Photo by Lauren Chandler
Photo by Lauren Chandler
Photo © Jesse Friedman.
There are an insane amount of other details and variables that go into making chocolate as delicious as Dandelion’s – like where and how the cacao plants are grown, fermentation techniques at the farms, and roasting methods – but Todd showed us the basic process of bean to bar. For more info on all the other fascinating stuff, check out this article by fellow Eat Retreater and chocolate fanatic, Lesley Stockton.
They explain the process beautifully over at the Dandelion Chocolate site, and if you are in San Francisco, you can even go on a free tour, like a modern-day Charlie Bucket. And if you’re really into chocolate, you can even make a small-batch of your own chocolate with Dandelion or go on a cacao buying trip.
