Last minute plan: Making our own Easter chocolate!
Today is Easter Sunday in Antigua. We caught the beginning of the Resurrection processions and then we thought we'd better to do something else in Antigua other than just feel ill and watch processions, so we went to Chocomuseo to make some Easter chocolate!
It was so much fun and actually quite educational! We learnt all about the history of chocolate; how the Mayans discovered cocoa and then the Spanish brought it over to Europe. They kept it secret for over 100 years before Italy, France and the UK got a sniff of it and it was Mr Nestle who decided to mix it with milk to create the chocolate we are still chowing down on today.
We spent a good half hour being taught the history of chocolate by our brilliant teacher, Pablo. Then it was our turn to make chocolate, starting with the beans themselves. We toasted them and ground them up into a paste. We used that to make chocolate a la Mayan, which was a drink made with herbs and spices.
When the Spaniards came along they didn't like it, so they added milk, sugar and flavourings to the drink.
Finally, we learnt about the chocolate press, invented to simplify the separation of cocoa power from cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is removed during the modern chocolate making process, as it generates more money from cosmetics than chocolate, where it's used in skin creams and other beauty products. It's replaced with Lecithin, which aids the tempering process - tempering chocolate gets it to the right consistency before it solidifies.
We were given some tempered chocolate and then we had about 15 minutes to make our own chocolates before it set! There was a range of things we could add to flavour it, mint, salt, chili, raisins.... I went for salt and macadamia nuts, mint and Oreo!
It's delicious! We both had an awesome day - it was a really good way to spend Easter Sunday! I just hope the chocolate will make it to wherever we go next, as it is so hot here!
It was so much fun and actually quite educational! We learnt all about the history of chocolate; how the Mayans discovered cocoa and then the Spanish brought it over to Europe. They kept it secret for over 100 years before Italy, France and the UK got a sniff of it and it was Mr Nestle who decided to mix it with milk to create the chocolate we are still chowing down on today.
We spent a good half hour being taught the history of chocolate by our brilliant teacher, Pablo. Then it was our turn to make chocolate, starting with the beans themselves. We toasted them and ground them up into a paste. We used that to make chocolate a la Mayan, which was a drink made with herbs and spices.
Finally, we learnt about the chocolate press, invented to simplify the separation of cocoa power from cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is removed during the modern chocolate making process, as it generates more money from cosmetics than chocolate, where it's used in skin creams and other beauty products. It's replaced with Lecithin, which aids the tempering process - tempering chocolate gets it to the right consistency before it solidifies.
We were given some tempered chocolate and then we had about 15 minutes to make our own chocolates before it set! There was a range of things we could add to flavour it, mint, salt, chili, raisins.... I went for salt and macadamia nuts, mint and Oreo!
It's delicious! We both had an awesome day - it was a really good way to spend Easter Sunday! I just hope the chocolate will make it to wherever we go next, as it is so hot here!
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