CristinaW

I hate to be a bubble-burster, but Hershey is not listening to the dark chocolate lovers. They are marketing to the average consumer's desire to eat something sweet and, allegedly, healthy. Flavinol, antioxidents, etc. Dark chocolate has more flavinol than milk chocolate. So they (and other mass producers) are playing to the ersatz health benefits of chocolate. Never mind the fact that the high fat level of high-end chocolate counterweighs any purported health benefits. Me? Who needs a reason to be healthy when chocolate is involved? ← Ah, yes, the marketing schemes... and I was trying to be so optimistic...

Is this demo what you're looking for? ← Thank you for the demo -- wow, quite the undertaking! I suppose any time invested in making chocolate is worth it.

I'm so glad to see that Hershey is listening to the dark-chocolate lovers! I'll have to try their line; my all-time favorite is Lindt's 85% cacao, though, so Hershey will have a tough act to follow... A slight seque, but still on the chocolate topic: anyone have recommendations on how to work with chocolate from scratch? I mean, from the actual cacao pods? (Books? websites? etc.?) We will be moving to Central America next summer, and will have easy access to cacao trees -- I'm curious as to how I could make my own chocolates, and to see if it would be worth the time to venture into that hobby?