Entries from June 2009 ↓

You can make chocolate at home using traditional methods, although it’s can be a time consuming process. If you want to try making homemade chocolate as a hobby and you want the satisfaction of making your own chocolate you can do it.  You will need to buy some specialized equipment but not a lot.  Traditional chocolate makingat home is a great hobby, so you should give it a try to see if it’s the right hobby for you.

Steps for making homemade chocolate:

1.Choosing the beans. Chocolate comes from cacao beans so when you first start  making chocolate the traditional way you should start with some good quality cacao beans. The better the beans, the better the chocolate!  There are many suppliers on the internet that sell different varieties of cacao beans in many different price ranges.  If you are looking for whole cacao beans, it isn’t too hard to find them.

2. Roasting the beans. Cacao beans need to be roasted just like coffee beans. You can roast them on a cookie sheet in your oven if you are careful not to let them burn. You can also purchase a specialized cacao bean roaster for at home use if you decide to try traditional candy making as a hobby. The beans will need to be roasted for as few as five minutes or as many as 35 minutes depending on the type of bean and the flavor that you want to achieve.

3. Getting the chocolate out. After roasting the beans, crack open the outer shell of the bean to get the chocolate out. There are several ways to do this at home. One way is to lay the beans in a single layer on a counter or on a baking sheet and use a hammer to crack the shells open. Then use a blow dryer on a low setting to blow the hulls  away from the chocolate. You can also use a juicer to accomplish the same goal. Removing the chocolate can be very messy, so make sure that you have a mop and bucket and other cleaning supplies standing by.

4. Grinding and refining the chocolate. Now, you should grind the chocolate as fine as possible.  Many expert chocolate makers recommend using a high quality juicer for this step. When the chocolate has been ground as finely as possible, you will add milk, sugar, preservatives, and the other ingredients that you’re planning on adding to the chocolate to enhance the flavor. Once everything is mixed together, agitate the chocolate slowly but constantly. This process could take up to 12 hours to get the chocolate to exactly the right consistency. Some experts recommend using a stand mixer on a low setting for this stage of the process.

5. Tempering the chocolate. Once the chocolate has been fully refined it needs to be tempered before you can use it. Tempering chocolate at home can be time consuming, but if you want to speed up the procedure you can use a microwave to temper your homemade chocolate. Once the chocolate is tempered and is smooth, hard, and shiny. Now, it’s ready to be eaten or used in your favorite chocolate recipes!

By October 31st the dark nights are getting longer and cooler, and it’s easier to imagine another world of Halloween spirits, walking dead, werewolves, vampires and hobgoblins. You may be one of the many hosts planning to invite your friends dressed as these strange creatures into your home that evening for a Halloween costume party.

Perhaps you will be arranging a Halloween costume party this year, and thinking about good Halloween ideas.

First, think who your guests will be. Your whole approach will be different for children or adults. A children’s party will be earlier, and the entertainment and decorations less frightening. It helps to have a kids party checklist. Adults will expect different music, food and drinks, and party for longer.

Once you have your guest list, and have chosen a suitable date, time and place, you are ready to prepare your Halloween theme invitations. This is a fun thing to do. Part of the attraction of Halloween is the variety of ghostly themes. Your invitation should be novel, colorful and scary, but be sensitive about doing things like including imitation body parts to fall out of the envelope. Not everyone will see that as a joke. You should tell your guests if they are expected to wear Halloween costumes. Don’t forget to include a request for confirmation so you know how many guests to cater for.

Halloween decorations inside and out can take time to set up but make the evening more memorable. A cemetery scene with tombstones is a great idea, with subdued lighting, images of ghosts and ghouls, hairy spiders and their webs, sound effects and perhaps even a fog machine. Halloween is about Jack-o-lanterns made out of pumpkins with a candle inside. You will need to make quite a few, in different sizes, to help set the atmosphere.

With all that pumpkin flesh left over from carving your pumpkins, your party menu might include pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie. Halloween themes have their place in your choice of food to serve. However, following the horror theme and going overboard with Halloween decorations when laying out your table can detract from the pleasure and fun your guests will have at your party. Instead focus on food with a Halloween theme to make for a memorable party.

You will need to decide whether you will be serving a full dinner or just finger food. A sit down dinner or a buffet? The meal can be a good time to distribute party favors, especially if your party bag includes jokes, games or other things that will stimulate conversation.

Whether to buy, hire or make your Halloween costumes needs to be planned well in advance. Inviting your guests to wear costumes is a great way to get your guests into a party mood, to get conversations started and to get people laughing, but you need to tell them early enough. Going a step further and having your guest wear masks is a traditional way of making your guests less self conscious, and to quickly break the ice. It helps if you can learn how to face paint especially to make up children with Halloween face painting designs.

Halloween music and sound effects should be used to help set the atmosphere as part of the party entertainment, but at some point your older guests will likely want to dance to the latest hits. Making up a compilation of music specially for the evening on your computer can be fun. You might like to show short or full horror movies in the entertainment.

Party games and spooky Halloween themed entertainment adds to the good times. A good organizer and some prizes help to get everyone participating.

Do you like chocolate?

Why not make the most of some freebie choccie treats?

Whether it’s a Mars a day, a block of milk chocolate or a Boost that’s your favourite treat, milk chocolate is one of the most common treats on the plant. On Britain alone, the yearly spend on chocolate is £3 billion, thats 3 thousand million pounds! The bulk of this is spent with the big 3 manufacturers, Cadbury Schweppes, Roundtree and Nestle.

The most successful chocolate bars are Dairy Milk (Milk Chocolate), Snickers, Kit Kat, Dairy Milk (Fruit), Boost, Mars, Dairy Milk (Caramel), Double Decker, Twix, Flake, Crunchie and Yorkie. Additionally, there are specific extras such as Caramac and Mini eggs which are available at different times of year or made for promotional times.

In recent times, the demand for mini treats has risen hugely, especially approaching the festive season. A great example, Mars Celebrations can be bought in massive boxes around the Xmas period, in fact fly off the shelves in the run up to Christmas as supply struggles to meet demand. Many families will have tins of chocolate in preparation for visiors and family occasions at this holiday and celebration time.

Worries about the population’s health come to the forefront of public attention from time to time, and as a result, chocolate manufacturers have introduced schemes such as Treatwise to raise people’s awareness of the nutritional content of their products.

Ad breaks on the Television might be keen to imply that chocolate is full of calcium, which we all remember is great for bones and teeth, however a simple look at the packaging identifies the downside of sugar and fat to mention a couple. In reality, everything in proportion is widely considered as sound advice, and chocolate bars are no different. Awareness is the key, and the chocolate makers cannot be accused of trying to mask the facts, even if their advertising agencies are excelling in their jobs of highlighting product benefits al the expense of faults.

Grab yourself some sample choccie bar today, or if healthy snacking is more your bag, why not try out a free box of fruit?