Increasingly, Americans are making chocolate at home. Concocting chocolate truly from scratch involves a long, arduous, and expensive series of steps. Roasting, grinding, conching, tempering... If you really want to try it, the Chocolate Alchemy site will tell & sell you everything you need. One guy tried to make chocolate without specialized equipment, with disappointing results so far.

As an easy and educational alternative, I bought a kit called "Make Your Own Chocolate from Scratch Kit." It's available on-line at several stores for $12, although I got mine at NYC's American Museum of Natural History for $15. The kit is designed for kids ages 8 and up, but both my 3-year-old son and I enjoyed the experience.

A very small company called Verve makes the kit. At the manufacturer's site, you can see and read all of the kit's printed messages: the box; a politically correct vignette of organic chocolate harvesting; a very short legend & history of chocolate; and instructions.

Bottom line: Using a microwave oven, I made about 7 oz. of adequate dark chocolate treats in 17 minutes (not including 15 min. cooling time). I used only one half of the sugar included in the kit and still found the result too sweet. If you enjoy a good 70% cacao bar, then I'd suggest using only 40% (or less!) of the sugar.

Although the box suggests that you're making chocolate "from scratch," that's quite an exaggeration. For one thing, the beans have been pre-converted into cocoa powder. Moreover, in order to temper the new chocolate, the kit provides "starter crystals" made from grated, already-existing chocolate bars.

The following photos show some of the steps I took, although I'm not including any of the details that you can read about on Verve's web page.

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Here's the box, showing Aztec "good natured fun" with chocolate:

The kit includes cocoa butter (yellow), confectioner's sugar (white), cocoa powder (fine particles), starter crystals (medium particles), three whole cacao beans (not part of the recipe; just eat them), candy liners, temperature indicator (black strip), and instructions / educational information. You add vanilla extract and any mix-in goodies you desire.

Here's the cocoa butter. It's oily and unflavorful with a faint chocolate aftertaste.

Melted cocoa butter with the cocoa powder and confectioner's sugar.

After mixing, you'll have a warm, gooey dark chocolate paste.

Trying to speed up the cooling process, I deviated from the instructions by using a cake pan (rather than a glass bowl) and by relying upon a cook's thermometer rather than the temperature strip. Here, I'm registering 94 degrees F ? which signals that I should add the starter crystals.

Starter crystals added.

In addition to filling some cups with unadulterated chocolate, I furnished others with crystallized ginger, chopped almonds, chili powder (as a tribute to the Aztecs), coconut, etc. Below is one cup with ginger.

These filled cups then go into the refrigerator for 15 min. or more. They tasted even better after an hour.

My 3-year-old son got very excited at the prospect of eating homemade chocolate, and he devoured as much as I let him grab.

In truth, the chocolate tasted okay, nothing special. On the down side, it was too sweet, not at all complex, a bit gritty, and melted too easily. But, it had the right look and texture, which made me happy since I expected less from a kit meant primarily for education and from myself as first-time maître chocolatier. Plus, you can add in your favorite chocolate flavorings and create novel combinations.

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