This recipe is focused on making the disks or mix for making the Mexican hot chocolate drink or any cacao based drinks. The language can get a bit confusing, so you might want to begin your journey with me by reading a previous post I wrote clarifying “What is Mexican Hot Chocolate.” In this recipe will we cover how to roast and mold chocolate into disks or similar shapes, so you can later melt them to make a drinking chocolate.
- Cacao. The most important ingredient in this recipe is cacao. You can find cacao beans anywhere online or if you live near some Latinos, the ethnic grocery store will carry them in the spice aisle. Starting with cacao beans means that you have to roast, crack, and winnow. If you are not interested in this process then I suggest you start with cacao nibs, which are the cocoa beans after they have been roasted, cracked, and winnowed.
- Sugar. Traditional Mexican hot chocolate recipes always have sugar. You can choose to make your disks with or without. I prefer making them without for myself because I like to play with sweeteners like maple syrup, agave, honey, molasses, and brown sugars when I am making the drink. But, when I am making the disks to give away to someone else, I always will add the sugar with the cacao.
- Other flavors. In Mexico you can buy Mexican hot chocolate disks with almonds, coffee, cinnamon, or sesame seeds. But you can also leave them plain – with cacao and sugar.
Mexican Hot Chocolate Disks
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 20 servings 1x
Description
How to make Mexican Hot Chocolate disks – video on molding the disks at the bottom.
Ingredients
500g roasted and peeled cacao beans or cacao nibs
400g sugar
10g of Ceylon cinnamon
You will need a metate, molino, or a high powered coffee grinder, food processor, or mill to make this. This does not work in a blender, hand held mixer, or mixer.
Instructions
IF YOU ARE STARTING FROM THE WHOLE COCOA BEAN:
- Roast cacao beans in an oven at 300F (149c) for 20 minutes. Or place in a large saucepan and mix with a spoon until the skins are browned, about 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven or stove and allow to cool 30 minutes.
- Hand peel the skins off of the beans or break the cacao beans with a rolling pin and place in a bowl. You have to remove the skins and the easiest way to do this at him is going to be with a hair dryer. Blow some air into the bowl (do this outside), and you will see the skins fly away. You can leave some or all of the husk but this adds bitter flavors and they can be toxic. In Mexico many mixes are prepared with the husks on the seed. You won’t ruin it to leave the husks.
BEGIN HERE IF YOU ARE STARTING WITH NIBS
- Grind the nibs and the cinnamon stick together. This is the tricky part because I don’t know what machine you will use. You need to get the nibs to look at minimum like a chunky peanut butter but if you can get it to look like a creamy peanut butter, this would be best. Once you have your nibs in liquid form, you are ready to make your disks.
- If you are going to use molds and you are not used to working with chocolate I suggest using these molds because the silicone allows for easy release. If you are a professional, I prefer using something like this for best shine.
- If you are going to add sugar, make sure your cacao mix is hot, about 120f or 50c. If you do not have a thermometer, heat your chocolate in a bowl, use a water bath or microwave, heat until if feels hot to the touch. But it can’t be so hot that you can’t even touch it. Don’t overheat otherwise you will burn it. Remove from heat/microwave and add the sugar and any other flavors you might be using. The sugar will cool it down. Ideally you want to get it to 84f or 27c. Then you can place in the molds and immediately into the refrigerator for 10-20 minutes until the chocolate releases from the mold. If you are not using sugar, allow the chocolate to cool a little until you put in the molds.
- Another option is to hand mold or use cookie cutters: When you add the sugar it will cool down the cacao. This is good and will make it easier to hand mold or place in cookies cutters. In order for you to use this technique, your chocolate should look grainy and hard but not like a liquid like it needed to be for the molds. Grab a small amount with your hand and roll into balls. Or place into cookie cutters; you must remove the cookie cutter before it sets, you only need the cookie cutter to shape it then you remove it. Once it sets you might not be able to remove the chocolate in that shape.
- Allow to cool until it hardens then store in a dry, cool, dark place until you are ready to drink.
- Your chocolate might turn white or gray, this is ok, just the fat and sugar migrating to the surface. This will not affect the flavor of the chocolate at all.
Equipment
Silicone skull mold with top hat
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Notes
- You have the option to use only cacao for this recipe. Make a 100% cacao mix -don’t add the sugar or cinnamon. When you make the drink, you can add the sugar, cinnamon or any other flavor.
- The sugar-to-cacao ratio is up to you, normal recipes in Mexico would be much higher in sugar. 500g of cacao to 700g of sugar. This is ok if that’s your preference.
- You can buy cacao beans online . Some Latin stores have it next to the spices aisle. Or you can walk into a chocolate factory and ask if you can buy some, if they sell roasted even better because it saves you the time. Also consider the nibs to speed up the process. Just know that cacao beans are cheaper than cacao nibs, and 100% chocolate or bakers chocolate is much more expensive than nibs. The more processed, the more expensive.
- To make the actual drink: heat 1 cup (230ml) of milk, remove from heat, add 30grams of your mix and blend in blender until it all dissolves. This is considering you added sugar initially. If you did not add sugar, you can add 15 grams of your mix with 15 grams of sugar to the milk.
- Category: drinks
- Method: melt
- Cuisine: latin
Keywords: mexican hot chocolate disks, cacao drink, mexican hot chocolate