2024 | 25 hours ~ 2 weeks | $50 | Cooking/Baking, Fermenting

I checked off this longstanding bucket-list item after a layover in Miami, FL when I came across a vendor in Aventura Mall selling whole cacao fruits for $14 a piece. Having just returned from Nicaragua and disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to make chocolate there, this was the next best thing. Perhaps even better, because I got to figure it out myself through trial and error (usually the best way to learn things). It turned out well but I do think the locals would've done it better.

This is my very suspicious-looking cacao fruit in my backpack on the airplane. It was the only place to put it, and it went through security and everything!

I karate-chopped the fruit open to reveal a demigorgon-resembling center and the slimiest seeds I had ever seen. I tasted one and it was surprisingly fruity and pleasant.

But that wasn't what I was there for.

First step: put the seeds in a jar, cover in plastic wrap. The internet said to cover in banana leaves and leave outside to ferment, but I didn't have banana leaves nor warm enough weather.

Second step: put in oven, DON'T turn oven on; instead, turn oven lamp on.

Third step: leave in the oven for at least four days. Every day I checked on it, the seeds got darker and began smelling like chocolate! By the last day, it truly smelled like chocolate brownies.

Finally I took the seeds out and laid them out on a dehydrator to get the slimy bits to not be so slimy. An oven on low heat for 30 or so minutes should also do the job.

Then I put the dried fermented seeds into the toaster oven at 300 degrees to bake. I left them in for 15-20 minutes

Maybe I left them in for too long.

But I peeled back the skin of one cacao seed, and a cute shiny inside was revealed, mitigating my worries. At this point it smells fully like chocolate.

I peeled the rest of the cacao seeds, and this was the cacao nib yield. Some were more difficult than others for some unknown reason, and if I had done a few more, I'm almost positive I would've contracted early onset carpel tunnel.

The cacao nibs tasted like chocolate, just without any sweetness. Shocker. They were also a bit fatty, hence the shininess.

I ground up the cacao nibs in a handheld, electric coffee grinder to save myself some time and effort, and turned to the mortar and pestle to finish the job. I love mortars and pestles.

After some grinding and warmth from the friction (and the microwave), the cocoa powder began releasing some of its fat and started to stick together. It got to the point where it was almost liquid, but any further than that would've required mortar and pestle skills that I was not yet capable of. So I supplemented the chocolate with a bit of cocoa butter I had purchased on Amazon, which quickly transformed it into a smooth liquid.

After adding sugar, I poured the chocolate into a bar mold. I added salt to one half of the mixture and sprinkled it with more salt.

I put the chocolate in the fridge to speed up the cooling process, which might've been a mistake because I had forgotten chocolate needs to 'temper' to end up with a nice crunch. It didn't give the best "crunch" when I bit into it, but it tasted definitively like chocolate, looked definitively like chocolate, and was definitely a rewarding experience.