Chocolate

[tisri]

Hi all,

Having taken to my shiny new Hottop like a duck to water I'm thinking of trying to make chocolate-covered espresso beans. I can roast the beans and melt the chocolate but trying to figure out how to cover them in chocolate without ending up with unsightly flat bottoms on all of them is tricky.

I'm guessing I need some kind of drum to tumble the beans with the melted chocolate. Has anyone else done this kind of thing, or can anyone offer any tips?

Cheers
John

[Joey]

Hi John!
There is a company in Italy that sells small copper-drums, electrically heated and turning the drum around it's axis.
It's still difficult, I know this because I gave 4 kinds of coffee beans to a chocolatier here in Austria in order to make chocolate covered coffee beans with this machine, he just bought it to cover dried fruits with it...
They did a good job, but had problems with the coffee beans form. The beans where sticking together as couples at the first attempt because of the flat sides.
So I figured it might be easier with peaberries, but we haven't tried yet.
The big difference between their beans and the usually sold ones is, that they just dust it with cocoa powder! That tastes better and it's all natural. Other companies usually cover them with some glaze, shining, like M&Ms - so that they don't melt in your hand, just in your mouth, yadayada...
It can happen though that an oily spot from a bean fights it's way through the cocoa powder giving the bean a "patina" - but that's all natural and tastes incredible.

So, as you don't have this drum it will be a bit difficult. The nice thing on the drum is that it's hot at the beginning when the liquid chocolate covers the beans, and then it turns during cooling the beans and hardening the chocolate. And I remember the chocolatier telling me something about doing 2-3 layers of chocolate to prevent the beans from sticking.

I tried it once at home but I made a lot of mess. The beans where covered very irregular and looked more like deer droppings

We need to find something drum like in the household....hmmm....washing machine, nope - has holes....dryer! No holes, but too big. Something like these barbecue roasters but without holes...what about covering the hottop with foil and adjusting just the lowest temperature? Just kidding

Well, these are the facts of covering beans with chocolate.
Please provide us with the story of your attempts and pictures if possible

Have fun!
Joey

[tisri]

Thanks Joey, I'll see if I can figure out how to improvise something. I don't want to pour chocolate over beans on a baking tray because they'll just end up with flat undersides. I don't want to improvise the Hottop for reasons you can probably guess!

Perhaps what I need is something like a large can of something, emptied and mounted on some kind of improvised spit, over a barbecue. I can rotate it quickly by hand with the beans and melted chocolate inside. Who knows - it might just work!