Ground Chocolate

This is coarse ground chocolate I have produces from the cacao pod I fermented and roasted.  This is not however all of the cacao nibs I made, only about a third of it.

This is much closer to how chocolate was originally used, pounded to a mass and added to whatever, usually a drink.  This however has sugar added and can be called about 70% dark chocolate.

It really does have a good flavor to it even if it is an extremely micro batch.  One of the things that contribute to flavor is the yeasts in the area it is fermented.  This is why I wanted to see how Texas chocolate would turn out before investing too much time or money in producing it in a larger scale.

Of course I will still have Claude no matter how things turn out.  He's got more leaves coming in again.  Yes, I said leaves as in plural.  There is a top leaf (height) coming in but there are also two side leaves coming in.  One of them has a very definite leaf shape and was the first to pop out.  They are at consecutive leaf points and about two thirds the way up the trunk.  Just saying trunk gives me chills.  He's an actual tree now with a thin bark.  So many of the other trees have not made it.  There are however several still at the office that are sprouting new leaves.  If all goes well they will be the other trees in the cacao orchard.

Back to the ground chocolate though.  I'm not sure I have enough to try to temper it.  We did kind of temper some ground chocolate once.  It had a snap but there was also more if it than this.  I'm afraid of scorching such a small amount.  Probably just eat it like this.  Maybe even as an ice cream topping.