Easy Chocolate Truffles:

Ingredients:
1 (2 lbs) bag of powdered sugar
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese softened
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1 (12oz.) bag of chocolate chips
1 (Tbs.) shortening
1-2 (Tbs.) extract


Mix the softened cream cheese with the powdered sugar until stiff consistency. Roll into 1 inch balls. Refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours) Melt the chocolate chips with the shortening over low heat. With a fork, dip the chocolates into the melted chocolate and place upon cookie sheets covered in waxed paper. Refrigerate until firm. We use this recipe at special holidays. What we do is mix a large batch and then add various mix ins such as nuts, coco powder, crushed peppermint candies. My daughters favorite are flavored with maple extract and coated in milk chocolate. My sons like added chocolate and rum extract to the mixture and dipped in dark chocolate. My sister swears that my lemon dipped in white chocolate makes her "butt twitch in delight"! I often use contrasting melted chocolate to decorate them. I do this by dipping a fork into the chocolate that is melted and sort of throwing the contrasting chocolate onto the truffles. I actually did ones for a wedding that were decorated with edible gold. Use your imagination when coming up with the combinations.

Chocolate Truffles: (Basic Recipe)

Ingredients:
1/3 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 cups 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
1/3 cup Unsweetened Cocoa
Directions:
In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a simmer. Add the butter and stir until melted. Add the chocolate chips. Stir until completely melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and pour into a shallow bowl.
Cool, cover, and refrigerate the mixture until firm, at least 2 hours.
Using a melon baller or small spoon, roll the mixture into 1-inch balls. Roll each ball in the cocoa powder, nuts, toasted coconuts. Enjoy immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Trufffles

Last night as I pondered on what my next post should be about several ideas popped into my head and the word "Truffles" stood out from everything else. Truffles can be  very intimidating things to make but the taste of homemade compared to store bought is a big difference. For one, when you make truffles at home you don't need to add any of the preservatives found in commercial products.
The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 made possible separating the natural fat in cocoa beans, called cocoa butter, from the bean solids. This not only improved the consistency and taste of the remaining cocoa powder but made possible the development of solid chocolate. Eating chocolate or solid chocolate, as opposed to drinking chocolate, was first produced in 1847 in Fry's chocolate factory in Bristol, England. Solid chocolate is a combination of cocoa powder, sugar, cocoa butter and often flavorings like vanilla. In 1879 Swiss Henri Nestle and Daniel Peter developed milk chocolate by combining solid chocolate with milk powder. Experimentation in France and Switzerland led to the development of ganache.
Ganache is the center component of a truffle. Ganache is a velvety smooth combination of solid semisweet chocolate and cream. Cooked at just the right temperature it cools to form a rich and firm paste with intense chocolate flavor. A truffle is a confection made of a round ganache center, often flavored, covered with a shell of milk, dark or white chocolate. Truffles are often covered in cocoa powder, sugar or finely chopped nuts.
Perhaps originating in France, the truffle is named for its visual similarity to the French mushroom-like fungus of the same name. Like the original truffle, chocolate truffles have become synonymous with luxury and a sumptuous taste experience. Truffles are made in a wide variety of tastes. In many chocolate houses the Chocolatier's finest ingredients are reserved for the truffle.
A chocolatier is a type of chef that specializes in chocolate. A chocolatier has the skills of making chocolate, including tempering, molding, and making other pastry designs.
enerally chocolatiers start out as pastry or confectionery chefs, but anyone can become a chocolatier. Through proper schooling, or possibly self education, one could become a chocolatier. Although, proper training may be necessary to obtain an actual job as a chocolatier or to be considered a master chocolatier. Being a master chocolatier involves perfecting the art of working with chocolate to create not only delicious desserts, but also beautifully and skillfully crafted pieces of art with the chocolate. Generally it takes years of experience and a good background of confections and pastries to master the art of working with chocolate.
There are a variety of culinary schools and even specialty chocolate schools, like Ecole Chocolate School in Canada or The Chocolate Academy, with twelve different schools in the world. The French Culinary Institute also offers pastry and confectionery courses that are said to help a chocolatier learn the trade.
To become a chocolatier one must learn how to make and work with chocolate on different levels to create handcrafted pieces of art that also must taste sensational. Generally schooling consists of learning how to make chocolate from a variety of different origins. Once students learn how to make chocolate and begin to understand the physical and chemical aspects of chocolates they can learn to work with chocolate in many different applications. Chocolate is a versatile food thus different courses offer learning about different techniques when working with chocolate. Once someone becomes well-educated about all of chocolates' applications, or specializes in specific applications of chocolate they may be considered a chocolatier.
Often perfecting technical techniques of design and the art of flavor takes many years of practice. Advanced studies can lead to a better understanding of the components of chocolate and how to make chocolates along with sculpting and creating beautiful masterpieces from chocolate.
I'm going to post two different recipes for truffles. One will be the most widly used recipe and one will be more of a user friendly truffles. I encourage you to try both. Good luck and good tasting, Carren

Mom Says Eat your Chocolate!

Did you know that dark chocolate is often cited as having some serious health benefits. I remember as a kid we were told in heath class that eating chocolate would lead to acne. Since this discoveries are some what new to me, I did as I normally do, sat and contemplated the actually health benefits of dark chocolate.

This is what I found out:

Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

Lower Blood Pressure: Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.

Lower Cholesterol: Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

it tastes good

it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure ( move over sex!)

it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant

it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn't Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:

Here is some more good news -- some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.

Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.

Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.

Chocolate Tip 1 - Balance the Calories:

This information doesn't mean that you should eat a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.

One bar of dark chocolate has around 400 calories. If you eat half a bar of chocolate a day, you must balance those 200 calories by eating less of something else. Cut out other sweets or snacks and replace them with chocolate to keep your total calories the same.

Chocolate Tip 2 - Taste the Chocolate:

Chocolate is a complex food with over 300 compounds and chemicals in each bite. To really enjoy and appreciate chocolate, take the time to taste it. Professional chocolate tasters have developed a system for tasting chocolate that include assessing the appearance, smell, feel and taste of each piece.

Chocolate Tip 3 - Go for Dark Chocolate otherwise known as semi-sweet chocolate:

Dark chocolate has far more antioxidants than milk or white chocolate. These other two chocolates cannot make any health claims. Dark chocolate has 65 percent or higher cocoa content.

Chocolate Tip 4 - Skip the Nougat:

You should look for pure dark chocolate or dark chocolate with nuts, orange peel or other flavorings. Avoid anything with caramel, nougat or other fillings. These fillings are just adding sugar and fat which erase many of the benefits you get from eating the chocolate.

Chocolate Tip 5 - Avoid Milk:

It may taste good but some research shows that washing your chocolate down with a glass of milk could prevent the antioxidants being absorbed or used by your body.

So, maybe it should be a dark chocolate a day keeps the doctors away??? Stay healthy readers and happy with the health benefits of chocolate revealed to us all.

Chocolate Chips

If you are like me, you cannot help but wonder where did all things chocolate come from. As I lay awake pondering this very question I knew some how, some way, I had to find out the answer. Sooooooooo, after much work with various web browsers, encyclopedias, and a few recipe books, I found out some really interesting and surprising facts.

Ruth Wakefield, proprietor of the Toll House Inn, is credited with the inventions of chocolate chips in the 1930's. She experimented with chopping up a chocolate bar and blending the bits into her butter drop cookies. When the chocolate bits held their shape during baking, an entire new industry in chocolate morsels and chips was born.

That made me curious about how cookies came into being so I had no other choice but to find that out as well.

The first cookies were created by accident. Cooks used a small amount of cake batter to test their oven temperature before baking a large cake. These little test cakes were called "koekje", meaning "little cake" in Dutch.

Cookies are made with sweet dough or batter, baked in single-sized servings and eaten out-of-hand. Perfect for snacking or as dessert, cookies are consumed in 95.2 percent of U.S. households. Americans alone consume over 2 billion cookies a year, or 300 cookies for each person annually. I no longer feel as guilty for mugging a girl scout for her cookies.

Cookies are most often classified by method of preparation - drop, molded, pressed, refrigerated, bar and rolled. Their dominant ingredient, such as nut cookies, fruit cookies or chocolate cookies, can also classify them. Whether gourmet, soft or bite-sized cookies, new categories are always cropping up as the American appetite for cookies continues to grow.

 In addition, the Dutch first popularized cookies in the United States. The British took a liking to them in the 19th century, incorporating them into their daily tea service and calling them biscuits or sweet buns, as they do in Scotland.

Sometime in the 1930s, so the story goes, a Massachusetts innkeeper ran out of nuts while making cookies. Therefore, she substituted a bar of baking chocolate, breaking it into pieces and adding the chunks of chocolate to the flour, butter and brown sugar dough. The Toll House Cookie, so named after the inn in which it was served, was a hit.

Historians credit the innkeeper, Ruth Wakefield, with inventing what has since become an American classic - the chocolate chip cookie. (See, I told you so!)

The earliest cookie-style cakes are thought to date back to seventh-century Persia, one of the first countries to cultivate sugar. There are six basic cookie styles, any of which can range from tender-crisp to soft. 

A drop cookie is made by dropping spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet. Bar cookies are created when a batter or soft dough is spooned into a shallow pan, then baked, cooled and cut into bars.

Hand-formed (or molded) cookies are made by shaping dough by hand into small balls, logs, crescents and other shapes.

Pressed cookies are formed by pressing dough through a COOKIE PRESS (or PASTRY BAG) to form fancy shapes and designs.

Refrigerator (or icebox) cookies are made by shaping the dough into a log, which is refrigerated until firm, then sliced and baked. 

Rolled cookies begin by using a rolling pin to roll the dough out flat; then it is cut into decorative shapes with COOKIE CUTTERS or a pointed knife.

Other cookies, such as the German SPRINGERLE, are formed by imprinting designs on the dough, either by rolling a special decoratively carved rolling pin over it or by pressing the dough into a carved COOKIE MOLD. In England, cookies are called biscuits , in Spain they're galletas , Germans call them keks, in Italy they're biscotti and so on. 

The first American cookie was originally brought to this country by the English, Scots, and Dutch immigrants. Our simple "butter cookies" strongly resemble the English tea cakes and the Scotch shortbread.

The Southern colonial housewife took great pride in her cookies, almost always called simply "tea cakes." These were often flavored with nothing more than the finest butter, sometimes with the addition of a few drops of rose water. (Something that can still be found in parts of the South.)

In earlier American cookbooks, cookies were given no space of their own but were listed at the end of the cake chapter. They were called by such names as "Jumbles," "Plunkets," and "Cry Babies." The names were extremely puzzling and whimsical.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of cookie recipes in the United States alone. No one book could hold the recipes for all the various types of cookies.

The recipe for the original Toll House chocolate chip cookies can still be found on the back of their chocolate morsel bags.

Now we have our answer to the "cookie" questions. If you have any other cookie questions, then please feel free to comment on my blog and I will try and find an answer.

This is a glossary of chocolate terminology

Cacao is the plant and all its products, before processing. Cacao refers to the unprocessed seed of the cacao tree, although some industry members use the term "cocoa" to refer to the plant and its seeds.

Chocolate is the product of the seeds of the cacao plant after processing, whether liquid or solid.

Chocolate Liquor—despite its name—doesn't contain any alcohol. It's actually just simple, unsweetened baking chocolate made from the ground up nibs (the meat) of the cacao seed. Chocolate liquor is actually about half cocoa butter and half cocoa solids.

Cocoa Butter is the vegetable fat contained in the cacao seed. Chocolate liquor is pressed to squeeze out the cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is solid at room temperature but melts easily in your mouth or at room temperature.

Cocoa Powder is the defatted powder made from cacao. It's the solid portion that remains after the cocoa butter has been pressed out of the chocolate liquor. Cocoa powder is categorized by the amount of cocoa butter that remains after pressing. Retail cocoa products can range from 10% to 24% fat, depending on whether they're beverage, breakfast, or cooking cocoa.

Baking Chocolate is a solid chocolate made from pure chocolate liquor, no sugar or milk added.

"Dutched" or "Dutch" Chocolate is made from chocolate liquor or cocoa powder that has been treated with alkaline salts to give it a darker color and a milder flavor. The process—which came to be known as "Dutching"—was invented in Holland by the chemist Coenraad Van Houten.

Milk Chocolate is a mixture of chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milk, sugar, and flavorings. All milk chocolate made in the United States must contain at least 10% chocolate liquor and 12% whole milk.

Sweet Dark Chocolate contains 15% to 35% chocolate liquor and less than 12% milk solids. It may also contain ingredients like condensed milk, cocoa butter, sugar, and vanilla.

Semi-Sweet or Bittersweet Chocolate is the darkest eating chocolate and has at least 35% chocolate liquor, in addition to sugar and cocoa butter.

Chocolate Flavored Chips and Coatings are compounded from cocoa powder and vegetable fats other than cocoa butter. They don't require tempering and are less expensive than chocolate made with cocoa butter.

White Chocolate is a blend of cocoa butter, milk, sugar, and flavorings. It contains no cocoa solids, and many people don't consider it chocolate at all! According to U.S. Standards of Identity, in order to be called chocolate, it must contain chocolate liquor (but then it wouldn't be white.)

Ever dream of being a spy?

 Chocolate factories can be extremely secretive in their recipes. Most chefs are unique in the way that we love to share recipes. Don't expect this in the chocolate industry though. Ever wonder how chocolate comes into being in a factory? I ,myself, have lain awake many a nights pondering the same thing!!!!

Most large-scale chocolate manufacturers operate more like a science laboratory than one might expect. Precision instruments track temperature and moisture levels and regulate the timing of automated processes within the factory. Every detail must be strictly controlled to produce quality chocolate day after day.

Manufacturers guard treasured recipes almost as tightly as the Spanish, who tried to keep chocolate a secret from the rest of Europe for nearly 100 years.

Details of cacao blends, conching times, temperatures, and proportions of ingredients are protected to keep key facts from leaking to competitors.

As with most food manufacturers, chocolate companies keep their factories as clean as an operating room. The purity of the product is dependent upon a sanitary environment and the good hygiene of company employees.

Chocolate must be tested regularly. Now, that would be an interesting job!!!

Manufacturers constantly run quality checks on their chocolate to measure its viscosity, acidity, cocoa butter content, purity, fineness, and taste.

Technicians in laboratories analyze chocolate every step of the way—from raw materials to finished product—to ensure it meets quality standards. Small pilot plants are used to test ingredients and develop new flavors or find better ways to make a top-selling candy bar.

In addition to general quality tests, chocolate manufacturers must regularly evaluate their products to ensure that they meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards. 

The FDA imposes strict rules and regulations regarding the proper chocolate terminology, flavorings, and ingredients. In addition, specific formulas and content lists govern the amount of chocolate liquor and cocoa butter required in various classifications of chocolate.

Whoever knew chocolate could be so complicated and we haven't even discussed all ther terms used in the chocolate making arts! I think I'll save that one for next time. With chocolate devotion, I remain yours, Carren

Recipe of the week:

Fool's Fudge: This is one of the most basic and fool proof recipe I know of. 

 

 1 12 oz. bag chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated!!!!)

Melt the chocolate chips on low heat in either a double boiler or microwave.

A double boiler is two small pans where on fits inside the other. I often use a mixing bowl that fits into a small saucepan full of water.

As the water boils, it melts the chips. Always stir the chocolate constantly as it burns VERY easily.

If you do it by microwave, try using it on medium power in increments of 30 seconds.

Once chips are melted completely pour in the sweetened condensed milk.

Add completely and pour into a buttered 8"x8" pan.

 

 I usually like to add nuts, some sort of extract like vanilla in a 1 tsp. size., candied cherries, sweetened coconut, etc.

 

Dream of endless combinations.

 

This should be refrigerated for a few hours until it hardens completely and then cut into 1' squares. Or eat it in the pan with a spoon.

Now that we know a brief history of chocolate, let's find out how exactly it becomes the bars we all know and love.

Turning cacao seeds into chocolate requires time, effort, and artistry. It's a fascinating process that takes you from tropical rainforests to huge factories.

First, farmers grow cacao, and then they harvest, ferment, and dry it by hand. Next, traders and import/export houses sell the seeds on the Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange to companies that process the seeds into various chocolate products.

The first stage in turning cacao into chocolate candy requires humans, not machines. Farmers must harvest pods and prepare seeds for shipment by hand. This labor-intensive process is long and difficult, but necessary to turn it into chocolate. Then they are sold across the world.

Chocolate manufacturers keep careful track of each cacao shipment they receive. They sort the seeds according to type and country of origin. Next, the seeds pass through a cleaning machine that removes bits of remaining pulp and debris. Then the seeds are carefully weighed so they can eventually be blended according to special formulas created by each manufacturer. Some candy bars contain up to 12 different types of seeds.

The key to excellent chocolate flavor is roasting. Large, rotating ovens roast the seeds at temperatures of 250°F or more to release the rich aromas and delicious taste.

Roasting can last anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours, depending upon the variety of seed.

As the seeds toss about in the oven, they lose much of their moisture. Eventually, they turn a deep brown color, similar to coffee beans. The roasting process makes the shells of the cacao rather brittle. Once the seeds have cooled, the giant winnowing machine can begin its job.

Inside this machine, cones that are serrated like the edges of a knife crack open (rather than crush) the thin shells to get at the seeds. Giant fans then blow away these empty husks.

Next, the remaining broken seed bits, called nibs, pass through a series of sieves, which strain and sort the nibs according to size in a process called "winnowing."

The nibs themselves are made up of 53% cocoa butter and 47% pure cocoa solids. Separating these two substances takes work. In this step, the nibs are milled—crushed by heavy steel discs. This process generates enough friction and heat to liquefy the nibs into a thick paste, called chocolate liquor. Some of the chocolate liquor is placed in a huge, 25-ton hydraulic press, which squeezes out the cocoa butter. This fatty, yellow substance drains away through metallic screens. Then, it can be added to dark or milk chocolates, used as the basis for white chocolate, or used in cosmetics and medicine. Once cocoa butter is extracted, the remaining solid cocoa is pulverized into cocoa powder—the product used in beverages, cooking, and baking.

Manufacturers blend unpressed liquor with condensed milk, sugar, and extra cocoa butter to form chocolate. The extra cocoa butter keeps the chocolate solid at room temperature. That explains why chocolate doesn't spoil—and why it melts in the warmth of your mouth.

The raw mixture of milk, liquor, sugar, and cocoa butter is churned until it becomes a coarse, brown powder called "crumb."

Next, the chocolate crumb mixture goes through a series of steel rollers stacked on top of one another. These break down the tiny particles of milk, cocoa, and sugar within the crumb.

Manufacturers must be careful—if they don't crush this mixture enough, the chocolate will be coarse and grainy. But if they blend it too much, the chocolate will be pasty and gummy.

In general, Swiss and German chocolates are refined for a longer period. This makes them smoother and finer than American or English candy, which is a matter of national taste preferences.

Next, the refined chocolate paste is poured into a vat in which a large heavy roller kneads, blends, and grinds the mixture. Agitating this paste smooths out the sugar grains to give the chocolate a silky texture. Aerating the paste allows acids and moisture to evaporate, which creates a mellower, more well-rounded flavor. This process, called "conching," can take up to six days to complete! Finally, the refined chocolate is cooled and warmed repeatedly in a process called "tempering." This gives chocolate its glossy sheen, and ensures that it will melt properly.

For convenience, tempered chocolate is shipped in a liquid state to other food manufacturers that use the flavoring in candy, cookies, and ice cream. Finally, in classic assembly-line fashion, machines squirt tempered chocolate into several hundred molds per minute. Some devices pour chocolate over flavored centers (a process called "enrobing" kind of makes me wonder if there is another term used called "disrobing"). Others create chocolate shapes that will be filled with liquid before their bottoms are sealed.

Eventually, wrapping-and-packaging machines box the chocolates.

 Now the most difficult part of this entire process is deciding what country makes the best chocolate? I'd like an informal vote. Add your vote to my comments and let me know which are your favorites.

The inside of a Cacao Pod

History of Chocolate:

What do you know about chocolate? 

Most people are under the assumption that Eve tempted Adam out of the garden of Eden. It wasn't. It was actually Adam who tempted Eve with a chocolate bar. At least it was in my head.

The tasty secret of the cacao (kah KOW) tree was discovered 2,000 years ago in the tropical rain forests of the Americas. The pods of this tree contain seeds that can be processed into chocolate. 

The first people known to have made chocolate were the ancient cultures of Mexico and Central America. Bring on the cabana boy fantasies. These people, including the Maya and Aztec, mixed ground cacao seeds with various seasonings to make a spicy, frothy drink.

Later, the Spanish conquistadors brought the seeds back home to Spain, where new recipes were created. Eventually, and the drinks popularity spread throughout Europe. Since then, new technologies and innovations have changed the texture and taste of chocolate, but it still remains one of the world's favorite flavors.(Duh!)

Until the 1500s, no one in Europe knew anything at all about the delicious drink that would later become a huge hit worldwide. Talk about the dark ages! Spain's search for a route to riches led its explorers to the Americas and introduced them to chocolate's delicious flavor.

Eventually, the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs made it possible to import chocolate back home, where it quickly became a court favorite. And within 100 years, the love of chocolate spread throughout the rest of Europe.

Chocolate-making begins in the field, not the factory. The cacao tree grows in the shade of tropical rain forests near the equator. Now, as rain forests dwindle and the demand for chocolate increases, scientists and researchers are looking into new ways to better manage cacao farms and preserve the environment.

Making chocolate takes years of manual labor. Like most agricultural crops, cacao must be closely monitored by farmers. They regularly walk their fields and check for pests, molds, and diseases that can potentially wipe out a whole harvest. In addition, a farmer must spend three to five years caring for young cacao trees before they'll produce their first yield.

Cacao harvesting is done by hand.

Unlike many contemporary crops, cacao can't be harvested by machines. Each thick pod growing off the trunk and branches of the cacao tree must be plucked by hand.

Cacao farming has faced many labor issues.

Because it takes lots of backbreaking work from many people to care for cacao, workers rights were often a major concern for cacao farmers. At one time, European countries even resorted to slavery as a way of supplying cheap labor for crops like cacao. 

Cacao farmers sell their product to chocolate-processing companies through traders at the Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange (similar to a stock exchange). Actually, these farmers get a contract for their crop before it is even harvested—this is called trading on the "futures market."

The final price for cacao isn't determined, though, until the crop comes in and is quality inspected. Cacao prices rise and fall with production and demand. Like other agricultural products, cacao experiences highs and lows in the world market. A rise in consumer demand for chocolate, or a decrease in cacao production due to disease, drought, or political disruption, drives prices up.

But when farmers grow more cacao than consumers will buy, cacao prices fall. Falling prices not only hurt the farmer, they can devastate a country's economy if it relies heavily on the sale of cacao. Did you learn enough about the cacao tree??? I sure didn't so I guess I'll have to go in search of some answers. Send me any questions you may have about cacao and I'll try to find out the answers. Until later, I remain your ever loving chocolate conquistador, Carren