CHOCOLATE MAKING PROCESS

Traditional Chocolate Making

 

            Long ago, chocolate are produced traditionally by using basic and simple method that they home made. This is due to the insufficient technology of machinery those days. By using logical and creative thinking, people are able to make chocolates as the source of income.

Figure 1.0 traditional chocolate mixing.

 

            The methods of making traditional style chocolates are not much different from the modern days technique. This is because, the basics of chocolate making are applied in the new technology to produce mass production, to ease and cut the time to half in order to obtain optimum performance.

    

Figure 1.2 Chocolate pouring method into open mould.

 

            Traditional methods of making solids chocolates involved the usage of melted chocolate which had been added with ingredients to make it taste better. Then, the mould is prepared, sort of the ice container in the refrigerator. The mould may vary from the pattern and sizes. In order to obtain a solid symmetry shape of chocolate, 2 identical mould is prepared such as the sand casting mould; cope and drag. Firstly, the melted chocolate is poured into each of the mould and then immediately being clipped together and left to cool for a period of time until it solidify. Then, the both mould is removed and a solid shaped chocolate is obtained.

            This basic principle is applied in the modern solid chocolate making and much improvements has been made in order to obtain desired yet complicated chocolate shapes together with mass production.

 

Solid Chocolate Making Process

           

            Overall, the process for making solid chocolate can be divided into main processes, injection moulding and chocolate casting. The differences between these processes are, injection moulding requires closed mould and melted chocolate is injected into it. While chocolate casting required either pouring melted chocolate into and open mould or closed mould.

 

Chocolate Injection Moulding

 

                         Figure 1.3 The machine of the injection mould.

 

Nowadays, there are many types of chocolate injection moulding machines and they are able to produce complex shapes with rapid production. The shapes that are taken into account for this particular assignments is the easter rabbit and easter egg shapes. For the easter shaped egg, the mould has 2 compartments which are symmetry and the cross sectional area is split at the horizontal part.

    

However, making single chocolate at a time would be time consuming to produce a large number of orders. Hence, the moulds are design to accommodate up to hundreds of mould in a single major mould. The hundreds of minor moulds are arranged in such way that when the melted chocolate in injected at the top part, the excessive molten chocolate will flow to the lower part and immediately filling the mould area through a very small diameter of runners just like the one used in sand casting. By applying this method, a large amount of easter egg chocolate are able to be produced at a short time. When the chocolate has cold, the split mould is opened and the chocolates are removed from the mould and thus they are ready for the following processes such as adding colours and packing.

 

    

    Figure 1.4 The moulds with runners.          Figure 1.5 The major mould.

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Casting Method

 

This particular method is as simple as making ice blocks in an ice tray of a refrigerator. What do we need from this process is trays of open mould. The process starts by pouring melted chocolate into an open mould and it is set to cold. If a symmetry chocolate shape is desired, what needed to be done is to combine two opened mould that has been poured with chocolate, together. When the chocolate has solidify, the mould is opened and the final product is obtained

           

Figure 1.6 From left, cracked egg, happy bunny, easter bunny, and plain egg mould.

 

CONCLUSION

 

            From the statements above, it is determine that solid chocolate making do have similar methods with metal casting process just that the molten metal is replaced with molten chocolate. By comparing both injection moulding and chocolate casting process, it can be said that both of the processes are simple in method but however it do vary in terms of cost and type of moulds. The pouring method also is different where in the process of chocolate injection, melted chocolate is injected into the major mould which will then be distribute into the minor moulds inside of it. In the other hand, for chocolate casting process, the melted chocolate is poured directly to the mould without any splits or runners.