Tips for making chocolate at home, and a recipe for 3 ingredients chocolate

It’s very easy to make chocolate at home if you have the ingredients. I use cocoa liquor, also known as cocoa mass (depending on your position on the globe), cocoa butter, and a sweetener such as maple or agave syrup. These ingredients are available in most health food stores.

The recipe:

The ingredients for a nice 76% dark chocolate: • 1 cup (120 grams) cocoa liquor • 1/3 cup (40 grams) cocoa butter • 4 spoons (50 grams) maple syrup

Preparation: Melt the solids, mix everything and pour to the mould

And now for the tips:

• I work with cocoa liquor and cocoa butter the same way I work with chocolate, which means gentle warming and vigorous stir

• To melt the solids, I improvise a Bain Marie or more frequently I use the microwave with short pulses and mixing in between

• The agave syrup mixes more easily with the cocoa ingredients. If you use it, note that it is sweeter, so add smaller volumes (I add about 75%-80% volume of maple if I switch from maple to agave syrup, so for this recipe you can add 3 spoons of agave syrup)🍯

• You can add 2 spoons of hazelnut butter for a Nutella-like flavor, or another nut butter for some creaminess and a twist of flavor

• Tempering chocolate is not easy. If you have the energy, go for it. If not, you can keep your chocolate in the fridge, it’s still tasty😋

• Extracting untempered chocolate from a mould could be tricky. Using a silicon mould can solve it, even untempered chocolate could be extracted without too much hassle. Another option is to skip the mould and pour the chocolate onto a parchment paper. Smooth it out evenly, cool the chocolate, and when it is solid you can cut it with a knife or just break pieces

• Last tip for today: add fun inclusions! I usually add all kinds of nuts and berries, but essentially you can add anything that goes well with chocolate, aka almost everything. This is the moment to get creative 😊