Another Christmas

24th December 2023

Ingredients

As we needed this batch to be ready in time for Christmas gifts again, we stuck with our usual 70% bar with 10% cocoa butter.

842g cocoa nibs - togo kekeli
420g cane sugar
140g cocoa butter

Roasting

As it had been a long time since we had made a batch of chocolate and we didn't have many of these beans, we didn't experiment with the roast, and used the same parameters as the previous roast.

Refining

I didn't record the length of time the chocolate was refining, but it was approximately 24 hours.

Maturing

This batch matured for 2 weeks before it was tempered. We had some issues with the viscocity being strangely unpredictable, and so some of the chocolate was made into drops rather than bars.

Tasting

Most of this chocolate was given to friends and family for Christmas, so we didn't get to taste much of it, and we didn't have any left from previous batches to compare, but we did get some positive feedback.

Notes

It had been a year since we'd made a batch of chocolate, because we'd been so busy with life stuff. Everything went surprisingly well considering we were out of practice, except for tempering. The first attempt at tempering failed because the chocolate was too viscous and we weren't sure why. The second attempt was only just successful, although the chocolate was too thick to mould into bars, so we piped it into drops which made successful presents. A third attempt with part of the batch that had become too thick to pipe drops with was a surprise, it tempered perfectly with a lovely, runny consistency. We still have no idea why the viscocity was so varied. We definitely have more to learn.