Oh, shiny thing!

Far too long ago for me to admit, the lovely Julia, was kind enough to send me a chocolate making kit. A Mayan Magic chocolate making kit to be exact.

Oh yes, a special kit in which you get all the raw ingredients for chocolate in separate little parcels, and you can make it yourself. From scratch. Seriously, how exciting is that. In my own little kitchen this week, I got to make chocolate. Not just melt some in a bowl, but actually mix and make it!There was only one problem. For some reason my pack was lacking instructions. At first I thought this was because the process was so idiot proof that even someone like me could manage it. However, I have now discovered that no, this was not intentional, there should have been instructions, my pack just didn't happen to have any.

I thought I would make that very clear before I went on. The following experiment was done entirely based on what I thought I should do. For the proper version, with a rather swanky video I must say, you should head over to Julia's site. In fact, you should do that anyway, just because you can.

I decided that given there was coconut butter in one little packet, and cacao powder in the other, the most logical thing to do would be to melt the butter over a bowl of boiled water, and then beat in the powder. I then added some of the agave necter to sweeten it. I didn't add it all as I like my chocolate dark and bitter.
It seemed to go pretty well, but I must admit when I dipped my finger in to taste I rather wished I'd sifted the powder and whisked it in, as it was a little chalky.
I had promised Julia that I would make a Mayan inspired truffle with the chocolate once made, and so I decided to add a little oomph to the chocolate mixture itself and so added a small mound of cinnamon and chili. It took rather a lot of the spices to get the desired effect, but I got there in the end.
Finally, I poured the glossy mixture into a foil "mould" and left it to set in the fridge. I have only nibbled at the edge, and although it doesn't taste like any of your usual bog-standard chocolate from the shops, it's alright. In fact, pretty good considering I had no instructions and had to wing it!

I also only used half the ingredients, so now I can watch Julia's video, take notes and have another go! Hopefully this time it will be even better. All that remains now is for me to get my act together and make the truffles. Considering it's taken me over a month to review the kick, you might not want to hold your breath! I'll get there. Honest!

So yes, although I don't feel fully qualified to give the product a proper review I will say that I had great fun doing it, and the fact that you can adjust the sweetness and add flavourings whilst actually making chocolate from scratch is pretty exciting. I can't wait to have another go.