I woke up the other day with a deep craving for chocolate. A few weeks ago I made chocolate from a bar of cocao my best friend got me from Peru and I really wanted some more. When I finally got to it, it was early Sunday morning. I had just deep cleaned my kitchen the day before and decided making chocolate was the best way to break in my newly cleaned kitchen.  The last time I made chocolate bars I used milk, oil and sugar. It came out good but still needed a little work. Being the experimenter that I am, I wondered what it would taste like if I made chocolate with or without those ingredients.

I made chocolate three different ways. First I made unsweetened milk chocolate using just 4 ounces of melted cocao and 3 ounces of heavy cream.

Secondly I added 1.5 ounces of raw sugar to the remaining 11 ounces of melted cocao. I used half of that to make sweetened dark chocolate, adding in almonds and sunflower seeds as my palate seemed fit.

The last time I made chocolate I used 2 ounces of sugar for 11 ounces of cocao. My plan is to decrease the sugar some of every time I make it and see how low I can get it and still thoroughly enjoy the chocolate.

Lastly I added oil (peanut oil poured out of a jar of natural peanut butter) to see how the chocolate would taste with fat but no milk.

That afternoon, my daughters and I went over a friend’s house for a playdate and I brought my chocolate so we could have a chocolate tasting. It was so much fun!

It was such a fun and interesting experiment. I loved the texture of the unsweetened milk chocolate but it felt like it was missing something. It was a bit bitter like darker than black coffee. It was interesting to have something feel so smooth but also have just a dark bitter. The next time I try it I think I will add some spices. Maybe a pinch of salt or cinnamon or maybe even ground ginger. My favorite was the sweetened dark chocolate with almonds.

The cocao that had sugar and peanut oil was my least favorite. I think the peanut oil didn’t do it justice. When I made chocolate a few weeks ago I did a mixture of olive and avocado oil and really enjoyed that.

The recommendation is to use cocoa butter as it tends to stay solid at room temperature. I saw this happen in real time on Sunday . As we sat on my friend’s porch watching the kids play with playdough the cocao with just sugar got softer but did not melt. The cocao with just cream took a while to melt and the cocao that had the oil melted quickly. While it’s recommended, I never do it because I don’t like single use ingredients in my kitchen.   Every time I get a piece of chocolate, if I don’t eat it fast enough I end up with chocolate all over my fingers. I don’t mind that though as anyone who knows me knows I’m a little messy haha.

I still have some raw chocolate in my fridge that was sent to us from Jamaica. In a couple weeks I’m going to make some chocolate bars with that and see how it turns out. I might even try my hand at making chocolate chips so when I’m in the mood for cookies I have some homemade chocolate chips!  We shall see how that turns out haha.