Gabriella Creates

The Cocoa Fruit And Making Your Own Chocolate

DEP In response to prompt 23 of 52

Cocoa the joy of cocoa.

I would like to start by saying thank you to Dr. Preeti Singh for this lovely prompt about fruit.

Last month in February 2023 I visited my son in Bend, Oregon. I have never seen a cocoa fruit and was surprised that the little market where we stopped by in town had some.

They were specially placed on a small table in front of the fruits and vegetables section. There were some other unique tropical fruits next to the cocoa pods. My heart immediately pulled toward these fantastic fruits. I wanted to touch them and hold them. My son purchased two for me as a present which was a very kind gift. It seems small but this gift made me happier than anything else would have. I was overjoyed with holding the pods. We went to a park before getting back to the car for my journey home and here I am just walking around with my little cocoa pods in my hands. I did have some heads turning around. I wonder what people might have thought. If they had any idea what I was holding and why. I did not care much we had a nice walk before heading back to my home.

The Journey of chocolate making began.

Once home I googled multiple options how you cut open the pod, more about the cocoa beans and how to eat them, roast them, and how to make chocolate out of them. It was all a new and interesting process for me. I found out that all parts of the cocoa pod are edible. The pod I had was older and hard I did tase it bud did not enjoy much of it and decided just to keep it maybe for some future project.

Once the pods were open the white slimy covered cocoa beans appeared. The white slimy stuff around the bean pods is edible. It tastes like some tropical fruit and the taste does not compare to anything else. I was wondering if the taste was different if the pod was freshly picked from the cocoa plant. If you ever had a fresh cocoa fruit please do let me know how the to tase is to you. I am curious. It was a little weird as you kind of had to suck the fruit off the cocoa bean to get the taste. (I know how this sounds) I tried one then ended up just eating the whole thing together with the bean it was easier that way. I like the taste of the fresh cocoa bean it is soft and gentle and tastes like eating a piece of dark chocolate that is fresh and soft.

Once the beans were removed from the pod I placed them in a pot covered them up and let them ferment for a week before moving to the next step of the cocoa powder and chocolate-making process. I checked on them a few times and was a little worried when mold started to form. After looking up the process once again I was reassured that this is natural. Molds can form while you are fermenting the cocoa beans. This was a surprise for me. Normally my understanding of any type of mold was that it is bad for you except the mold that created penicillin on bread a long time ago when penicillin was invented. To be clear there was no mold inside the beans just some outside on the white fruity part. After a week I washed all the beans well before roasting them.

I am hoping to use the empty cocoa pods for some kind of project I am still not sure what yet if you have any great ideas let me know. They are much thinner now after drying out. Now my cocoa beans were ready for roasting. I choose to use an air fryer for roasting and drying this sped up the process quite a bit. I was grateful for this. This helped me, with the air frier, I used less electricity and time. In the summer I could have dried the seeds outside but in February in the Pacific Northwest, ( rainy season) this was not really an option.

The cocoa nibs were soft and it was easy to create them from the roasted cocoa beans. Once the husks were removed I was simply able to just break the beans into the cocoa nibs. I also added some other cocoa beans I had as the ones from the pods did not create many nibs to work with. The cocoa beans I had at home were purchased a while back. This way by batch to work with was doubled.

Once the cocoa beans were broken up into cocoa nibs and cooled down the next step was to create the ground cocoa and keep grinding until the oils start to form together and the cocoa powder becomes more and more solid and paste-like that starts to stick together. This process took a while of hand grinding as well as using a coffee grinder once our hands got too tired to keep on going. It was nice to see when the ground cocoa finally started to form a paste-like consistency. It feels like finally, the hard work is paying off in the chocolate-making journey.

The above picture shows the leftover cocoa husks after cleaning the roasted beans. Rojo-Poveda, O., Barbosa-Pereira, L., Zeppa, G., & Stévigny, C. (2020) in their study about the benefits of cocoa bean shells discovered that the cocoa husks contain fibers, phenolic compounds including flavonoids that have anti-oxidant and free radical reduction benefits in a long term use. They have an anti-inflammatory effect and reduce oxidative stress in the body. Additional elements found in cocoa husk include theobromine and caffeine which are both beneficial for the body by creating a positive mood and having anti-cancer effects for example. Additionally, multiple vitamins and minerals can also be found in this simple leftover husk. The same way how onion husk has many benefits and it is a simple way to use a leftover husk for tea cocoa bean husks have amazing benefits as well.

Above you can see my lovely tiny teacup (as I am writing this story I have my tea cup and pot in front of me this time it has green tulsi tea and black tea infused with lavender and vanilla in it. ) with my tiny pot that I enjoy and I am getting ready to drink my cocoa husk tea for the first time from the cocoa pods. I cleaned the beans after roasting them from the husks and now I am ready for my tea. The tea has a gentle cocoa taste, not too strong yet delicate. I love the flavor that it creates. I also love the fact that I can use the cocoa bean husk and create a drink out of it instead of just throwing it away.

Above you can see the whole chocolate piece after I removed the mold where I placed the thick cocoa paste the day before. I was looking at what I got for the first time. I was very happy with the outcome. The whole piece was hard and held together nicely which meant that the process of the chocolate making was correct and I am actually was looking at a big piece of chocolate I made with a friend for the first time in my life.

It was a happy and exciting moment for me. It is fun and joyful to create something new. I have a wonderful friend Maren Muter who creates her own chocolate and sells some every year and I have been interested in the process ever since I had seen some of her descriptions, her books, and videos about the chocolate-making process. Her love for cocoa and cocoa beans sparked my interest even more in cocoa than before.

THAT chocolate is amazing and now I had my own piece of chocolate I made. I was very excited. I was curious about how my chocolate tasted.

You can see the side of the big chocolate piece that was created. It held up very well in the mold. I had it in the fridge for a full day before taking it out of the mold and breaking it up so we can finally try a piece. At this point, I did not know yet how everything turned out. I was hoping for the best.

The chocolate was worth the wait. From beginning to end it was a 9-day process from pod to bean to chocolate to eat. It was a unique experience and although it was very hard work on my hands I enjoyed creating something new I have never created before.

Above you can see the final pieces of chocolate. I used them up by adding them to Icelandic rye bread, and cocoa rum balls and just eating them. It was a lot of work to create chocolate from the pods. It was worth every second.

The chocolate was dark as you can get. Pure 100% dark chocolate. Amazing taste and flavor. I am very grateful I had this experience of creating chocolate on my own. I have a great appreciation for the process.

Have you ever made your own chocolate from the cocoa beans freshly harvested from the pods?

I hope you have enjoyed this story and the pictures,

Gabriella

Here is the prompt 23/52 if you like to join the joy by Dr. Preeti Singh

References

Rojo-Poveda, O., Barbosa-Pereira, L., Zeppa, G., & Stévigny, C. (2020). Cocoa Bean Shell-A By-Product with Nutritional Properties and Biofunctional Potential. Nutrients, 12(4), 1123. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12041123

A great article I read today about family by DR Rawson - The Possibilist