Making allergy free home chocolate making (from cocoa nibs)

My new hair-brained scheme is to make my own chocolate from scratch. The reason for this is because I can't even eat Lindt dark chocolate Easter bunnies anymore as they contain soy products. In fact most chocolate contains milk, soy, nuts or traces of all of these which set off many people's allergies. Only the strongest of chocolates may be without but they don't suit every one's tastes. To me 85% chocolate tastes like ash.

Easter can be a sad time, with people not only struggling to find working recipes for hot cross buns but unable to eat a chocolate Easter egg. Sure, there are other sorts of eggs but most include wheat products or some other allergy inducing foodstuff.

So, hair-brained scheme though it may be, I've bought some cacao nibs, cacao butter and cacao liquor (just waiting for them to arrive) and have a plan forming to make my own chocolate. I'm starting at the below stage and will work my way up to such things as solid chocolates as we all know them.

Make Chocolate At Home

John Scharffenberger

From this point I will have to start experimenting in which ingredients can be added to make blocks of chocolate or pretty little chocolate drops with designs. Obviously normal powdered milk, nuts, soy and the like are out. I'll post my findings as they succeed.