Posted by Sarah V. Hayes on Oct 25th 2020
Know You’re Conche
A picture of the first conche machine born in 1879 in Berne, Switzerland. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Oh fudge! “With all the holidays celebrated annually, I want just one celebrating chocolate.” Interestingly enough- there is! Next Wednesday, October 28th celebrates anything made with, from or for chocolate. Slice those apples, melt those smores, and prepare that pie. There’s no better time than now to grab a spoonful of chocolate fudge to celebrate this day.
The varieties are endless: from chocolate bourbon to chocolate stout, drizzled on irish cream or chocolate chips, one thing is for sure: the Nestle-duo sure knew what they were doing!
As a refresher, Henri Nestle (the co-founder of Nestle Company) and Daniel Peters (the creator of milk chocolate) invented milk chocolate candies.
Chocolate first became was used as a drink in the Mayan culture.
Eventually, the Aztecs started using the cocoa bean to make chocolate. Aztecs used the bean as a form of value to trade with. Suddenly, the cacao bean became more valuable than gold. Chocolate soon spread through Italy, France and throughout Europe (but you already knew this).
So, moving on to something you don’t know…
In 1879, Rudolf Lindt, a swiss Chocolatier, invented a machine making chocolate smoother and easier to chew. The machine is called the conch machine.
Wikipedia states, “A conche is a surface scraping mixer and agitator that evenly distributes cocoa butter within chocolate and may act as a “polisher” of the particles,” see Conche.
But before we get too involved in the conche-making procedure (I don’t want to bore you), how about you experience the luscious, sweetness of Phenomenal Fudge and tell me how much you enjoyed the conche-making procedure?!