This year, working as an edible educator in Portland, I designed a farm-to-table class on chocolate. My middle school students learn how a fruity cacao bean becomes a creamy chocolate confection. I taught them how to make chocolate cherry chia pudding and raw chocolate sauce. Check out the recipes below.
At ViVerde we have a three-year-old cacao grove growing in the shade of their “nurse” banana plants (photo above). Cacao trees start to produce bean pods around age five, so by 2020 we should be rolling in beans! Did you know flies actually pollinate the cacao flowers?
Here’s a quick run-down on how chocolate is made:
- The red, yellow, or orange pods are hacked off with a sharp blade and beans removed to ferment for about a week. Fermenting the beans helps develop the wonderful aroma of the cacao.
- Beans are dried, roasted and crushed into “nibs”. Cacao butter and cacao solids can then be separated and processed; both are used to make chocolate.
- Cacao nibs are crushed finely and mixed back with cocoa butter, then heated. The liquid chocolate is agitated and aerated for hours (72 hours or more for high quality chocolates), a process called “conching,” During this process, off-flavored and bitter substances and water vapor evaporate away from the mixture, and every solid particle is coated with with cocoa butter. Grains are so small in the finished product they are imperceptible to the tongue; chocolate can be as smooth as silk.
- Milk and sugar can be added and the chocolate melted and molded into whatever a chocolatier desires.
In Granada cacao beans are inexpensively available in the market to crush and sprinkle on yogurt or granola and bake into cookies and scones. Cacao is chock full of anti-oxidants, cancer-fighting properties, and can help lower blood pressure. A square of dark chocolate a day keeps the doctor away.
Cacao pods and seeds when fresh. They are covered with a slightly sweet membrane.
Raw Chocolate Sauce
Ingredients:
- Raw Cacao Nibs
- Raw Agave Nectar
- Water
Soak cacao nibs overnight in water. Drain nibs and blend in blender with a few tablespoons water and agave to taste. Blend until smooth.
Chocolate Chia Pudding (serves 2)
- 3/4 cup milk, non-dairy milk, OR water
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds
- 2 tablespoons raw cacao powder (or cocoa powder)
- Agave nectar or sugar to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Garnish ideas: Raspberries, cherries, toasted coconut flakes, chocolate chips…
- Combine all ingredients except chia seeds in a blender and puree.
- Stir in chia seeds.
- Pour into bowls and refrigerate at least one hour or overnight to let the pudding set.
- Garnish and enjoy.