Way over budget hot coco

Hot cocoa is a nice drink to have once getting home during winter, most people would do the reasonable thing where they buy cocoa powder and milk, mix the two and put it in the microwave. However, as we are Fontys students, we are not allowed to be reasonable. So the following instructions will guide you to make the most expensive hot cocoa imaginable, you will need:

• Theobroma Cacao tree Trinitario variety 1 Meter - € 60,00 • Cocoa grinder - € 15.000,00 • A cow - € 1.550,00

In total the raw materials would cost € 16.610,00; however we should also factor in the price of the time and labor that it will take to make the raw materials into a fresh cocoa drink.

Cocoa Powder

1. Firstly you will have to roast the cocoa beans, you could try insulting them by telling them how ugly they are, however research suggests that that is not a very effective solution. What is more likely to work is leaving them in the oven for 10 minutes between 120 and 160 degrees Celsius.

2. Once the beans are roasted, they must then be peeled, it should also be mentioned that it would be suggested for you to wait for the beans to cool down before trying to peel them. The peel can be thrown away and the nib can be saved for the next step.

3. Now that you have cocoa nibs you can start grinding them up, for this it is suggested to use a cocoa grinder, wich will heat them up as well as grind them. The result of this process will be a hard lump of cocoa liquor. You can now put the cocoa liquor into a hydraulic press which will extract a “cocoa butter”.

4. Once the cocoa butter solidifies you will have what is known as cocoa cake. This you will have to crush up in order to be able to grind it up into a powder.

Milk

1. Feed the cow.

2. Milk the cow.

Hot cocoa: Now that you have these two main ingredients you can mix the two and put the mixture in a microwave and enjoy a fresh tasty beverage!