Making chocolate -help required!

[The Chili Monster]

Hi Everybody

the reason I asked for a recipe is I thought that it might make an unusual birthday/christmas etc. gift for chilihead friends. However, it does appear to be time-consuming from scratch (ie from the beans), and so a more realistic approach would be create chili chocolate wafers or similar incorporating green and black choc into the work-up OR make small, thin chocolate shapes.
I'll probably get into this more in the autumn and will no doubt be looking for willing conscripts to trial it then.
Any further suggestions are, as ever, gratefully received.

[shiney]

No suggestions but I am a willing volunteer for anything that needs testing. I reckon that'll be most of us here!

[ina]

make small, thin chocolate shapes.

Now that's a brilliant idea - chocolates in the shape (and, if you must, the flavour ) of chilis!

[Shirley]

I'm up for testing

We had some chocolate chilli almonds last year - almonds were dusted in chilli powder and then wrapped in chocolate and they were delish delish delish...especially so when you got a hot one!

[Shirley]

As CM has just brought this thread up again via the chilli thread I thought I'd tell you of the two organic chilli chocolate bars I've recently tried.

Montezuma's organic chili chocolate - nicely packaged - cardboard with no foil wrap. Min cocoa solids 73% - made in west sussex www.montezumas.co.uk I paid £1.99 for this bar.

Dark, rich and smooth - the chili flavour is there but isn't overpowering. You wouldn't eat a whole bar at one sitting though. Get's 8/10 from me.

Plamil Organics - Organic Cayenne Chocolate. Traditional foil wrap with paper overwrap. 70% cocoa with this one and the cayenne hit is stronger but perfectly acceptable. www.plamilfoods.co.uk It cost £1.71


Not quite a smooth a chocolate as the Montezumas but still dark and rich.... the extra spice wins this one an extra half point. 8.5/10.

[Shirley]

I wonder whether you could chilli up a chocolate spread sandwich too?! Good choc spread that is... green and blacks or something.. I've had choc spread with sliced stem ginger on nice dense seeded bread... that worked... will have to buy another jar and experiment!

[hedgewizard]

I'd say it's either a case of adding chilli powder to an already texture chocolate (or hiding the bits by adding nuts), or you need to get the capsiacin oil to move into the cocoa butter. You could do this by mixing chopped dried chilli in with melted chocolate in a bain marie and keeping it in a melted state for quite a while, or doing the same thing with a little cocoa butter and then mixing it into the chocolate. Then you'd have to seive it to get the bits out.

Let us know how the experiments go CM!

[The Chili Monster]

Well, today I discovered a copy of "The Ultimate Chocolate Encyclopaedia" in a charity shop, which is now sitting on a shelf in the kitchen. It contains sections on the cocao bean, history of chocolate, difference in chocolate across the globe, lots of recipes, but best of all how to make professional-looking chocolate shapes!
Will keep everyone posted.