How to Make Chocolate at Home, from Bean-To-Bar: A Practical Guide to Fabulous Chocolate, Paperback

Chocolate is to my mind the most alluring, the most complex and truly the world's most amazing food. Let me help you access chocolate like never before, to create it and tailor it to your exact specifications. The aim of this book is to enable you to make fabulous chocolate the simplest way with minimal specialist equipment in your own home. It will take you from complete novice to expert, with simple to follow instructions, handy tips and extensive formulations for all types of chocolate. I have over 10 years' experience in making chocolate, bean-to-bar, in my home kitchen. With a day job and two children, I am very time poor, so I have this down to a fine art I ask you to trust me, try a bunch of things from this book and from there adjust the formulations to your liking and before long you will have your own style. With all the options and information in this book, my aim is to fast track you to your individual chocolate maker style The important thing is to enjoy the process and really, what is not to like about making fabulous chocolate.

About the Author:

I remember quite clearly when I was bitten by the chocolate bug. I was sitting in my parents' apartment in Brisbane, Australia, back in May 2007 with a computer in front of me. I had just been thinking about Dad's coffee plant, growing in a pot on the balcony. The thought of growing and making your own coffee quite appealed to me but I don't drink coffee, in fact I didn't have any vices, I am not a huge fan of tea or wine or beer or anything that might be considered something to be a connoisseur of. In any case the thought struck me, could I grow cacao on the balcony and then make chocolate? At this stage I knew I loved chocolate, as almost everyone does, but I didn't know how much and I only vaguely knew about fine chocolate, where the flavor profile is as important and regarded as a fine wine. The first two websites that caught my eye were an Australian website created by a company known as Tava, to sell their 100% cacao bars (cocoa liquor) and Chocolate Alchemy, a site run by John Nanci who made chocolate from bean-to-bar on a kitchen scale. Through his site he sold beans, grinders and all the other equipment and ingredients to make chocolate and ran a forum on the making of chocolate at home. So right then and there I decided I would make chocolate too, and it was a good decision!