Anyone have experience cooking cocoa beans?

The google way didn't turn out the way they described!

It said to cook until the husk cracked but at the recommended maximum cooking time they still hadn't cracked, I took them out anyway and I think they're a little over done.

They said to bash with a hammer after cooking to release the nib! I'm glad I didn't because the husk was very thin to what I thought it would be and it might have been dust after being bashed!

Luckily I only did a dozen beans and I don't mind experimenting but some advice would be great so I don't waste the rest ofthe . 72c I spent on them, lol!

I don't really have a question as such but just wanting to know how others do it so I can compare. Thank you! :)

Nice to nibble on too! Google said it wouldn't be! I normally like google too! :)

amiri I did the Cadbury's factory tour when I was down that way last year. They give out raw beans. We then just peeled them and ate them. They tasted very cocoalike and are definitely an acquired taste. As someone who doesn't care whether foods are sweet or not I rather liked them but others faces were twisted in eeew as if they were eating bitter lemons or something.

However, they wouldn't be tops on my list of must have foods.

Lol, no I wouldn't go out of my way for them but they're definitely not horrible either! I used to eat lemons as a kid like they were oranges and true sour ones not the meyers (which are nice too)!
I'm thinking about mixing the pestled nibs into some creamed coconut for a crude coconut chocolate. Hopefully it'll taste reasonable for when I have chocolate cravings once a month. The whittakers dark ghana is very nice but still puts my sugars up even in small(ish) doses. :)

where did you get them from? I want to try it now!

Hehe bex32! As soon as I saw them I thought "got to try that now"! I actually found them in foodtown today! $15 a kilo, I don't know whether that's good or bad though!
It's hard work to make "real" chocolate out of them especially if you don't have the equipment but you can make a crude version.
I've just finished making a practise version but I roasted the beans too long. But it still tastes edible to me.
Creamed coconut, coconut oil and finely crushed cocoa beans. Crunchy, bitter, sweet. Kind of reminiscent of chocolate covered coffee beans, as in texture! Not as sweet though! Nice! :)

I can't remember if you have read or commented about creamed coconut before in the low carb thread so I'll have a little repeat. I take creamed coconut, put the jar in a pot of water that I have just bought to heat then turned onto the lowest heat setting on my stove (electric). After about 20-30mins it is soft enough to get out of the jar and put into the, now emptied of water, pot it was in, add 130 - 150grms of cacao butter and stir occasionally till it all melts together. Then I can either just put it into a try to set and slice into not too big pieces just before it sets hard or I can add some toasted coconut and cinnamon (cinnamon lowers blood sugar by the way) before I put it into the tray.

Each slice is only about 4grms carbs if you make smaller slices if you have added the toasted coconut.

If you have a sweet tooth, you can add about 10-12 grains (just joking but the tiniest amount is all you need) of pure stevia powder. I don't.

I've been lurking in the low carb threads since I found out about coconut oil but I don't comment in them because some people get really worked up about others, who don't want to eat so called "normal" food!

I bought some food grade unrefined cocoa butter to make a recipe similar to your recipe above (which I'll have to try), but it doesn't smell much and all the descriptions say if it isn't refined it should smell, so I've been reluctant to use it apart from for body products!

I haven't turned completely low carb but OMG it truely does make a huge difference! Just doing it for a day astounded me with the control I had over my blood sugars!
My diabetic advisors in the past were trying to get me to eat 60gms of carb per meal plus 30gms for each snack x3 a day. I've been in and out of hospital all of my younger life trying to follow "The Experts" advice. I now haven't been to hospital since the first time I got chicken pox (about 6-7 years ago). I used to go in at least 4-5 times a year! But my eating still wasn't good. It's getting better now.

In fact I've been sick all this week and normally my blood sugars would be through the roof but they're not because I'm just not eating the carbs. I've also adjusted my novorapid down from 24 units (at least) a day, down to around 4 units a day! I do miss potatoes though! I had about 20grms of carb worth of potatoe last night and my sugars went up to 15. 4 even though I had insulin to counteract it! :(

Lol, sorry, blah blah blah, I lost my voice on Thursday and it's still gone, so I think I'm trying to make up for it by typing!

Anyone with roasting cocoa bean advice? :)

Good for you Amiri - people can learn a lot by giving low carb a go for a couple of weeks. Hope you get your voice back soon!

No I haven't got any roasting cocoa bean advice, but I was in Huckleberry Farms store yesterday and right beside the cacao butter was a packet of raw cocoa nibs. I have just opened them to try. They are still an acquired taste. I'll roast some in a pan and crush them with my mortar and pestle and get back to you. Just not doing it now because I have to go out shortly.

The cacao butter I buy is absolutely ideal for making a non-sugar 'choccy' type thingamajig to eat when a choccy attack comes one. One word of caution though. The slices I make are about 4grms each. I have measured out 10grms of nibs (about 2 tablespoons full) and that comes to 5 grams. So if you used 20grms to add to your choccy, each slice would probably be somewhere in the region of 5-6grms.

Would that fit into your daily allowance without you having to restrict other, more healthy, carbs?

I haven't actually got an eating plan/carb allowance as such going yet, but I'm sure that homemade lowcarb chocolate treats could easily fit into it, hehe! I've just stopped eating obvious carbs and at the moment I'm only eating meat with some veges (no root ones) and some eggs. I'm a little fussy but getting better!

I'm not quite sure what to do next but I joined the low carb site a little while ago but been a bit busy to have a good look in the forums yet.

My brain just doesn't seem to cope with research or too much information well (I blame it on all the hypos and hypers! ) so I tend to wait to see what other people do first and how they cope. I've gotten to the stage where I'm starting to try and plan what I'm eating but being sick has slowed me down, so it'll all have to wait a couple of days.
Back to bed now to keep warm and snooze (Bronchitis has been keeping me up at night, lol, I'm not lazy). :)

As for daily carb allowance, Doc Bernstein recommends 6grms for b/f, and 12 grms each for lunch and dinner. I'll check on the snacks allowances later. At the moment I'm feeling wired and unable to settle on anything in particular.

I have taken about 3 tablespoons of my raw nibs, put them in a dry pan and 'toasted' them still they smelt all chocolatey and had smoke just coming off them. I then crushed them in my mortar and pestle (not sure which is the bowl and which is the crusher). Tasted like hot raw ones. So still not wrapt.

Anyway, I have just made some into a tea with crushed cinnamon stick and coconut oil. I prefer the drink with just the cinnamon and coconut oil. Maybe they'll be nice if mixed in with some coconut oil, spread out and frozen, similar to the bark recipe that can be found somewhere in the Coconut Oil thread (the one that goes on for pages and pages).