Before going further, I'd like to explain the processing of some chocolate products. Then we can know, how many products can be produced through the different process. Maybe you can also develop your own way to make your own chocolate product.
Chocolate is derived form cacao beans.
It first dries in the dryer, or most traditional farmer dry it in the open area by the help from sunshine. After drying, the beans are fermented naturally, to let enzymatic reaction which is important in developing the flavor of chocolate. After that, the dried fermented cacao beans are separated into to part: shell and nibs.
The separation process called winnowing. We mostly use the nibs, crush it, and make it into liquid. It is called Chocolate Liquor.Â
Chocolate liquor then processed further. It can be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa powder. Cocoa butter is very expensive. Mostly chocolate we consume (especially the cheap one), used Chocolate substitutes as the source of the fat.Â
Mainly the fats derived from plant oil, example palm kernel oil. Cocoa butter and powder then can be processed again into another chocolate products and confectioneries, such as chocolate bar, chocolate paste, as wafer filling, etc, mixed with other ingredients such as milk, lecithin, sucrose, and vanilla flavor.
There are also types of chocolate: dark chocolate and white chocolate. Dark chocolate means the whole chocolate, can be processed with alkalinization that makes the color of chocolate becomes dark. Meanwhile, white chocolate isn't chocolate with milk, but white chocolate is chocolate that mostly contains the fats.
Is chocolate is a mood booster? I would say, yes. Chemically, chocolate contains Theobromine, a stimulant that makes serotonin release in our body and induces the calm and relieves effect (anti-stress hormone).
