Television Segment Transcript
Original Language: Chinese (Mandarin)
Air Dates: May 28-29, 2006
Anchor: If you’ve been asked if you’ve eaten chocolate, you would most definitely say yes. But, if you were asked if you know how it’s made, you probably wouldn’t know.
Today, our California reporters will take you to see how chocolate is made a Chuck and his chocolate factory.
Reporter: Chocolate is loved because its taste is good, but it also has romantic sentiments. Chocolate and roses – something that can help you express your heart’s feelings on Valentine’s Day.
You have probably tried many store-bought chocolates, but do you know how chocolate is made?
Today we’ll take you to a chocolate factory near San Francisco to see how it is made.
Owner Chuck Siegel has made chocolate for over 19 years.
The difference between big companies and his company is that Chuck sees chocolate as not only food, but as art.
He uses traditional manual processes, uses natural ingredients, and delivers his chocolates to customers within three days of the products being made.
To make chocolate, you first mix chocolate and sugar to make a chocolate coating. This is a key step.
According to different tastes, you can add milk or peanuts.
This chocolate is used to coat chocolate truffles. The chocolate evenly coats the chocolate truffles. The coated chocolates go through a long tunnel, and at the end they are ready to be packaged.
Next, Chuck will explain how to make a filled chocolate, which is difficult ot make. We will see how to make butterfly-shaped chocolates.
Let’s see how these peanut-filled chocolates are made.
Peanuts and sugar are mixed and stirred together until cooked. When cooking, the peanuts and sugar will mix and become caramelized, and form a paste. The sugar is melted first, then water and vanilla are added.
Chuck says that the vanilla he adds isn’t vanilla extract from the store, but real, natural vanilla.
Then, this young man will measure the temperature. The peanuts will need to be cooked first, and then added to the sugar. This is constantly stirred, so the outside of the peanuts is covered by the sugar. This takes 15 minutes. Then it’s ground up. This is the filling for the chocolates.
Let’s see how the outer shell of these beautiful peanut butterflies are made.
Each of these consists of a thin outer shell which is carefully drawn one by one.
The extra chocolate is scraped off, and tapped with a hammer to make sure there are no bubbles.
These shells go through the cooling tunnel to harden. Five minutes later, they come out from the other end of the tunnel, and the shells of the butterflies are done.
Once the shell is made, the peanut filling is piped equally into the molds.
After this, another layer of chocolate is added, and the butterflies are done.
Charles Chocolates also produces a special fruit confection; these don’t contain artificial gelatin, and they are 45% fruit. In different seasons of the year, there are different flavors of these confections, such as strawberry and peach.
These fruit confections are very colorful, beautiful, and gourmet. They taste and smell great.
Now you’re probably like me – drooling.
Through the end of May, if you are in San Francisco, Chuck invites you to visit his store on California Street to taste his unique chocolate confections – his ongoing passion.
Anchor: At Chuck’s chocolate factory we saw very attractive chocolates – California’s reporters must have savored the experience. Next time they interview Chuck, I must go with them!