You knew this would be coming soon. Round two.

Just one pound again, because we’ve learned that that’s how much our set of four molds holds so we ordered two more sets but they won’t be here for a few more days.

Mistake made: if you have one, you’re supposed to Cuisinart the nibs and the sugar, separately, to make the conching faster and the nibs easier on the machine. This time I ground the sugar first.

But wait, he points out, looking at the bowl coated in a fine white afterwards (did some of it powder and then melt from the friction?) They said having the sugar touch the chocolate magically transforms the flavor to stop it from changing any more right at that point–do we want to stop it before it even starts? Would it, so early on?

He got out the second Cuisinart bowl (that I’d long forgotten existed.) I wiped down the only blade with a dry paper towel. Next time we will remember and pulse the nibs first.

So the melanger is working its initial magic and the sugar has yet to be poured in. But it’s ready.

Addendum the next day: we put the sugar in at about an hour forty-five minutes in last night. This evening, we put a metal mixing bowl in the oven at 100F so that the chocolate won’t cool too much too fast. Measured 4 g Mycryo powdered tempered cocoa butter, which comes to roughly a tablespoon for the pound of nibs we used. Poured the chocolate in the bowl, which was warm but 15F cooler than the stirring chocolate was, mix that powder in thoroughly and quickly, and then poured our mix into the molds.

I noted for the first time that the chocolate in the grooves of the rollers I’m starting to clean was sweeter than elsewhere.