10/04/2013
On Koh Samui, Thailand where I lived for almost a year I found a hidden and abandoned Cacao plantation, which I started to cultivate by releasing ripe cacao pods. After loading my scooter, I mean inside seats, bags hanging from scooter steering and a huge 120 litres backpack, I was quite a sight. When at home opening the 30kgs of Cacao pods, I was left with about 6-7 kgs of raw cacao beans, which was fermented in 7 days, in a plastic container with holes for drainage underneath. Add a little bakers yeast to the mix to kickstart the fermentation process, make sure to mix the beans with your hands 1-2 times a day, then you also get a feel with the process. Watch out for overfermentation, that ended my last batch. When overly fermented the beans starts to go dark, and it's spreading very quickly in the fermentation tank, like a disease. Something happens to the chemistry in cacao during fermentation, about 200 different, known chemicals get formed. When overfermented the quality of the beans drop drastically. After that I sun dried them on metal mosquito netting and needed to move them around as the Sun moved over the sky, the trees casting shadow. Most fun, sudden, small, tropical storms and getting the beans into shelter. After 3-4 days they were ready, you can feel it. Shell has hardened, they look kind of roasted. Then you got Cacao, after a couple of more days/weeks you can pinch them and they break open, producing raw cacao nibs.
From there you can grind them to a paste or put them in a coffee grinder, always go for the finest organic and ecological ingredients, wild crafted, the best. Like raw vanilla pods, macademia nuts, cashew, stevia, honey, agave, yucon syrup, coconut sugar, dried coconut meat, cinnamon, goji, even acai. Use cacao butter or virgin coconut oil to make the chocolate more consistent, a fridge is necessary unless you can keep them in a cold room. Be creative, taste and wham! you got yourself a Raw Chocolate party. Yuhoo! Vanilla, Coconut Oil, dried, shredded Coconut, Raw Cacao powder (Navita Naturals or Creative Nature), Stevia needs to be mixed with a sweetener, like agave, to equalise the bitterness. Mix the Cacao butter with the Cacao powder (alot), add favourable sweetener and vanilla extract or seeds, add more cacao powder until pretty solid paste, take a Macademian nut, roll a ball of chocholate outside the nut in a semi-thick layer, roll the chocolate ball in shredded and dried coconut meat and you got yourself a treat, put in fridge and eat at will. Be creative, we made a chocolate lasagne with mango pasta sheets. It will be a massive boost of neurotransmitters and central nervous system stimulants, although a safe and natural one, you will stay awake and dance for hours..
Thank you Gryan for reminding me! :)
