Today at the Choco Museum we learned about chocolate and the cocoa bean. First, we roasted the cocoa beans over a fire in a big bowl. We stirred the beans around until we started hearing a popping noise. It was very hot stirring the beans! Next, we took the shells off all the cocoa beans and separated the shells for tea and the beans for chocolate. It was hard to crack the cocoa bean shells. Then we ground the cocoa beans using a mortar and pestle and turned it into a paste. We turned the cocoa paste into a drink using water, the cocoa paste, cinnamon and honey. It was very bitter -- yuck! The second drink we ground up more cocoa beans into a paste and added cold water, ice, chili, honey, cinnamon and vanilla. Same -- yuck! The last drink we ground up more cocoa paste and mixed it with milk, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. That one was tasty! When we were done with the drinks we started to make our chocolate bar. In a machine they were mixing the cocoa paste and sugar for five hours. Usually they mix the paste for 24 hours. We were given a small bowl of the mixture and had a choice to add another flavor. The flavors were bananas, rum, coffee beans, cashews, peanuts and chili powder. I chose bananas. Then you mixed it all together and poured it into a chocolate bar mold. Tomorrow we can pick up our bars!!!!
Posted by Maren Guy<3
Hay, are you getting my comments?
ReplyDeleteHi Maren
Sounds like a really cool day. I liked Granada when I was there, especially the churches.I must say the boat ride around the islands was also lots of fun. On one of the islands, a bunch of monkeys live and some of the boat drivers will let them come on to the boat.
Love, Papa
That's cool i saw a picture of a person holding a monkey on the boat. It looks like a lot of fun.Miss you!!!
ReplyDeletelove you,Maren
Chocolate and bannas sounds good! Was it good?
ReplyDeleteNatalie :)
I haven't tried it yet, but i am excited to try it soon!
ReplyDelete,Maren