Raw Chocolate Making With Chocomama

You will need some basic equipment in order to make a start creating your very own raw chocolate. Most of it you will be able to get your hands on easily. This video sets out clearly everything you will need and some optional extras.

Learn about the special ingredients you will be working with as you make your raw chocolate. In particular, we will look at the cacao tree and the valuable products derived from it. We will look at how to sweeten your chocolate as well as ways to flavour your creations with quality additions. You will be inspired to be working with these lovely ingredients. 

Creating amazing chocolate requires a certain state of mind. Really enjoying making chocolate is a big part of that. The environment you work in can uplift you and help you to easily move into the frame of mind that you want. Preparation is an important precursor to your chocolate making session. We'll make sure you are ready for chocolate!

Before you begin mixing and melting those lovely ingredients, they first need to be prepared. And it is no exaggeration to say that the secret of great chocolate making all lies in the preparation. Here Sue will show you how to properly prepare your ingredients, so enabling you to get the very best out of your chocolate making session.

In this lesson we make our first batch of raw chocolate. There is something so special about the first one. You may already be eager to add flavours that complement cacao, like the peppermint I use in this lesson - but it's very nice to make a pure chocolate first. That way you can fully experience the essence of this wonderful food we are working with. Sue will be sharing with you her prime recipe that she uses for her brand, Chocomama.

Join Sue as she shows you how to create sweet, aromatic, preserved orange peel. Then sit back and enjoy while she makes another batch of chocolate, using the orange as an inclusion, reminding yourself of the raw chocolate making process at the same time. When you make these for yourself, you may very well find you're eating these delights even without the chocolate. They create a rather pleasing zing in the mouth and are very moreish!

Congratulations on your progress so far! You are now ready to move onto a new level of mastery.

You may have heard about chocolate tempering. It may have come over as a little mysterious, or difficult to do, or requiring special equipment. In this lesson, Sue explains what tempering is and why it's considered essential in the professional chocolatier's world. After this lesson you will be inspired to improve your chocolate even more by learning how to give it those qualities that people expect from chocolate.

This lesson will enable you to make your first batch of hand-tempered raw chocolate, in your own kitchen.  Sue will take you through the process, step by step, to give you the very best chance of success.  After mastering this, you will then be able to make chocolate that looks good, will keep well and may well be the beginning of a new chocolate business!

There are wonderful combinations of flavours and textures that you can put in your chocolate and in this lesson Sue shows you how to make Coconut Crispies, candied with maple syrup. And again, your kitchen and maybe your whole home will be filled with the most amazing aroma as they gently dry out. Watch as Sue shows you how to use them as an inclusion to make the most heavenly chocolate treats!

Such a useful lesson! Things can go wrong, or unplanned, with chocolate. Here, Sue gives you tips to help ensure a trouble-free chocolate session. She also looks at the causes of common tempering problems and how to avoid them. But be assured ~ chocolate is SO forgiving. If you do make mistakes, you may very well go on to create something just as good or even better than what you originally had planned.

Very well done! You've completed Unit 1 that covers the practice of making raw chocolate. Now sit back and enjoy a series of videos that showcases just what a wonderful way of making chocolate this is.

There is much debate amongst the raw food movement as to what qualifies a food as being raw. In this video, Sue considers what this means for raw chocolate. What qualifies chocolate as being truly raw? Is it even possible? Preferring to follow the spirit of the law, (of what is raw chocolate), here Sue discusses what she considers to be the important qualities of real raw chocolate.

The wonderful nutritional properties of the raw cacao bean have been recognised for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In this video we will see why, in modern times, it has often been lauded as a superfood. What an inspiration to maintain its nutritional integrity as much as we can, as we use it to make our own chocolate at home, with our own hands.

There is something very special about making any food by hand and chocolate is no exception. In fact, handmade chocolate is extra special because it is so rarely done. Most chocolatiers, whether professional or hobbyists, use ready-made couverture for their work. Those of us who make chocolate from scratch, using little machinery (is a coffee grinder a machine?) are bringing a gift to ourselves and those who are lucky enough to share our chocolate.

There is nothing quite like the raw chocolate community. Who would have thought that a common interest in this food would inspire so many people to such high standards of creativity and production? This video is an insight into the culture, ethics and ideas behind the raw chocolate culture.

We know we want to make raw chocolate but it's great to have a reminder of the key differences that distinguish raw chocolate from conventionally-made commercial varieties of chocolate. Presented as a clear list of comparisons, you will find this list useful when you are explaining to others what you are creating and why.

This useful little video clarifies how you can work out how to make, say, a bar with 80% cacao solids or how to work out the cacao percentage of a customised recipe for labelling purposes.

This is a fascinating area of discovery and experimentation. Healthy ways of creating sweet treats are out there in abundance and more are appearing all the time. This video will inspire you to play with different and delicious sweeteners, to the delight of those around you! Do you, or a loved one, require a zero sugar option? Are you diabetic or want a keto-friendly chocolate? Do you want everything in your creations to be raw? This lecture will start you off on your adventure to find the best options for you.

Well done! Sit back and enjoy this video as you feel the satisfaction of having completed the course Raw Chocolate Making With Chocomama.

Now that you know how to make both tempered and untempered raw chocolate, enhanced through the use of a variety of inclusions, you have now embarked upon a wonderful journey. Join Sue as she explains what you can look forward to on the Level 2 course of Raw Chocolate Making With Chocomama.

Find out about my book, Raw Chocolate Making, which is available on Amazon. The book is a companion to this course for those of  you who want to have an attractive, physical copy of all its content. Although it doesn't contain any extra content, it has all the advantages of a book - for example when you can't work online.