Chemistry of Chocolate Essay

coffee bean is make from the cacao garret. According to Rodney Lipson, cacao tree has been a cultivated crop for at least three thousand years, in all probability quite a bit more. The people who first utilized chocolate tree were the inhabitants of what is now Venezuela (Lipson) This group of people would eventually spread the cacao garret in northwestern South America. Cacao was clearly highly determine by these people and they spread it northward through and through trade with their neighbors. It was believably the Maya, over 1500 years ago, who brought Cacao to Yucatan in what is now Mexico.The Aztecs who got Cacao from the Maya, utilize Cacao in a number of expressive styles, one common way was as a bitter spice in food and perhaps also as a base for pasta or bread, only the most(prenominal) well-known way that Cacao was as a drink. date the Maya drank coffee bean hot, the Aztecs seem to have often taken it cold. The Aztecs called the drink, and app arntly the bea n as well, Xocoatl. From this word comes the pan-European word coffee. When Europeans first made contact with the Aztec civilization, Cacao was being cultivated and used extensively.The Spanish Conquistadors quickly noticed the benefits of Chocolate and used it to keep their armies marching long distances with little food. From the Aztecs the Spanish took it to Europe. Chocolate was widely used in Catholic countries after 1569 when Pope Pius V decl ard that Chocolate, the drink, did not break the fast, despite the hearty nutritional aspects of Chocolate (Lipson). Chocolate continued to be moved from country to country through trade and exploration.Soon chocolate found its way into America, and according to Lipson, In 1900 Milton Snavely Hershey, a Mennonite from Pennsylvania, began producing milk-chocolate bars and kisses with great success. He was anti-alcohol and saw Chocolate as a good, profitable alternative. His empire grew even larger during World state of war I, when Milton Hershey encouraged the US Army to add four Hershey bars to to each one soldiers daily ration (Lipson). Because of Hershey, chocolate was now affordable for everyone, and his methods of making chocolate are still used today.Peters chocolate tells us that chocolate is made by, storing the cacao beans in silos or warehouse. These rooms are well aired, kept at cool temperature and the humidity regularly checked. sooner the crossingion stage, the beans are sorted and cleaned. Cocoa does not acquire the horn of plenty of its color and the fullness of its flavor until it is roasted. The degree of care given to this cognitive process has considerable influence on the ultimate quality of the end product either cocoa powder or chocolate.When roasting is complete, the beans are cooled and their disregard shells removed by a winnowing machine. The husked and winnowed beans are called nibs. Heres where the first secrets of the chocolate manufacturer come in. The nibs are blended, combini ng as many as eight to ten varieties. It is control of these subtle mixtures that maintains a constant quality and brings out the flavor of each particular cast of chocolate. The roasted and winnowed nibs then pass through refining mills and are ground.The heat generated by grinding causes the cocoa butter or fertile to melt and form a fine paste or crystal clear known as chocolate liquor. This goes to large hydraulic presses which remove most of the cocoa butter. The cake which is left may eventually be made into cocoa powder. The cake goes through several processes in which it is crushed, milled and exquisitely sifted. After the cocoa paste, cocoa butter, milk, sugar and additional flavorings have been carefully weighed out in accordance with the recipe, they go into a mixer where rotating, kneading coat of arms thoroughly mix all the ingredients.The result is a homogeneous, paste-like mixture which is already pleasant to taste, but still feels gritty to the palate. The cho colate is put in a conching machine. While in the machine, the chocolate turns over in the conching machine, a controlled amount of air ventilates the mass, allowing the full aroma and flavor to develop. The still-warm conched chocolate is primed(p) in a tempering machine so that it can be slowly and steadily cooled. The tempering prevents separation in the chocolate when its filled into bar molds and hardens (Peters). This results in the average chocolate bar.