Food

How to make Palm Kernel Seed Oil

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Palm Kernel seed oil

Palm kernel seed oil has a lot of health benefits particularly in babies and toddlers. It is said to prevent convulsions in babies. When applied to a baby’s head it also helps to close the gap in the baby’s skull.

Palm Kernel seed oil is oil that is extracted from palm kernel seeds. It should not be confused with palm oil. To get the palm kernel seeds, you will have to break the hard shell covering them.

Procedure

Note: The process generates a lot of smoke so do it in a well ventilated room or outside the house.

Put the palm kernel seeds into a stainless steel pot and place on the cooker with moderate heat applied. Continue stirring the seeds in the pot as they are being fried ( do not add water). 

Continue stirring until oil forms. When a substantial quantity of oil has formed you can drain  it through an iron net sieve.

When oil has been fully extracted from the palm kernel seeds, the seeds will appear burnt.

The whole process can take over 30 mins depending on the type of pot used, cooking heat applied and the amount of seeds being processed.

How to make White Loaf Bread at home

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White Bread

Ingredients & ratios

1¼ cups whole milk, or more if needed.

3½ cups of flour, plus more for kneading and shaping.

1teaspoon of salt.

2¼ teaspoons of  instant yeast.

1tablespoon of  sugar.

2 tablespoons of  vegetable oil.

Procedure

1. Heat the milk in the microwave or in a pot on the stove until it reaches about 37°C or a little hotter than lukewarm.

2. Combine the flour, salt, yeast, sugar, oil, and milk in the mixer bowl. Mix until the dough is barely sticky, and easy to handle. Next, flatten the dough out on a work surface already painted with flour and knead until smooth. This will take another  4 or 5 minutes.

3. Grease a large bowl with oil. Shape the dough into a rough ball,put it in the bowl, turn it to coat all over with oil, and cover with

plastic wrap. Let rest at room temperature for about 2 hours for the dough to double in size.

4. Press down on the dough to deflate it. Dust the work surface with a little flour, turn the dough out onto it, cover with plastic

wrap, and let rest for 15 minutes.

5. Grease a  loaf pan with oil. Place the dough into the pan and shape it. Cover it with a clean kitchen towel and leave to rise again for 1½ hours.

6. Heat the oven to about 176°C. Brush  the top of the loaf lightly with water. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Remove the loaf from the pan and let it  cool completely before serving.

How to make Chocolate from Cocoa

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I will explain how to make chocolate from cocoa at home in 5 stages;

  • Harvesting.
  • Processing the Cocoa Seeds.
  • Roasting.
  • Grinding.
  • Storage.

Harvesting:

Cocoa tree
Cocoa

Use ripe cocoa for your chocolate. For the species of cocoa tree shown, the Yellow cocoa pods are the ripe ones. If you are buying, ensure you select the ripe ones.

Processing the Cocoa Seeds

Break the cocoa pods and remove the seeds from the stem holding them. Then store the seeds in a bowl and cover it for about a week. After a day or so, a type of juice will form depending on the amount of seeds being processed. It’s a fermented juice and its drinkable.

Fermented Cocoa beans after 7 days
sun dried cocoa beans

After a week, wash the seeds, spread them on a tray and dry in the sun for about 3 days. Look at the image below to see how sun dried cocoa beans look.

Roasting 

Roasting cocoa beans
Roasted cocoa beans

Place the sun dried cocoa beans in a frying pan and roast the beans at moderate heat. Stir the beans frequently to ensure that all sections of the beans get hot and get done. When the beans are well roasted, they will give off a popping sound like popcorn. The outer shell of the cocoa beans will be very easy to remove. Roasting will take about 30mins or more. 

After roasting, let the beans cool then remove their outer shells. Just apply slight pressure and the shell will crack and expose the real cocoa beans.

Grinding 

blending cocoa beans
Blending cocoa beans

Grinding the roasted beans is hard work. You need patience here. I advise you to use a high powered blender. A blender rated 650W or more will be ideal.  You can also use a hand or manual grinder.The goal is to grind the cocoa beans to be as smooth as possible.

Start bringing the beans dry. As you grind continuously it will eventually pasterise. The thick paste may be too strong for your blender/grinding machine to continue, you can add very little  water to make it easier for the blender. If you are using a hand rotated manual grinder or a very powerful motor grinder then roasted cocoa beans are easier to blend.

After the beans have been grinded to a consistent smooth paste, you can then add sugar,  milk and other flavors to taste  and blend all together. Blend all to as smooth as possible. 

Storage.

Chocolate cream
chocolate

Your chocolate creme is ready to consume after a smooth blend. To preserve your chocolate and get it tasting better, refrigerate it.

How to make moulded or cube sugar at home

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Making cubed sugar at home is something you can easily achieve. The major things you need are granulated sugar, clean water, bowl, mould or knife 

Procedure.

  1. Pour 2 cups of granulated sugar into a bowl.
  2. Add about 6 tablespoons of water to it.
  3. Mix thoroughly until the sugar is workable enough to be moulded.
  4. Place it in a flat metal tray . Then compress and straighten.
  5. Using a sharp knife, make a series of  horizontal and vertical slices along the compressed moist sugar forming little sugar cubes.
  6. Heat your oven to 120 degrees Celsius, then switch off and place the moist  cubes of sugar in the oven for about an hour.
  7. Bring the hot cubes  out of the oven and let them cool.
  8. There you have it, homemade sugar cubes.
  9. Store in an airtight container.
  • 2 cups of granulated sugar in bowl
  • add 6 teaspoon of water
  • mix
  • place in flat tray/bowl & compress
  • use knife to create square slices
  • place in preheated oven of 120 degree celcius hot for 1 hr.
  • allow to cool and you have home made cube sugar
make cube sugar at home

After step 3, you can place the moist sugar in small sugar cube moulds (purchased separately) . Then leave it to dry in fresh air until sugar is dry then remove the moulds to get your sugar cubes.

How to make Cocoa Powder from Cocoa

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Cocoa powder

    Cocoa is used to make chocolate. This article will briefly expand the procedure of how you can make cocoa powder for a nourishing chocolate drink at home.

    Major items you need are:

    1.Cocoa

    2.Cooker

    3. Frying pan ( for roasting)

    4. Blender

    Procedure

    • Covoa powder
    • blended cocoa beans
    • blend cocoa beans
    • roasted cocoa beans
    • removing outer shell
    • roasting cocoa beans
    • Cocoa beans in frying pan
    • sin du&y_* cocoa beand
    • sun dry cocoa seeds
    • wash cocoa seeds
    • Cocoa
    making cocoa powder at home
    1. Break the Cocoa pods and extract the seeds into a container.
    2. Wash the seeds to remove the fleshy content around it. 
    3. Sun dry the seeds for about a week.
    4. Roast the dried seeds in a frying pan. When the cocoa seeds are well roasted it gives  off a nice smell and popping sounds.
    5. Let the seeds cool then remove the outer shells of the cocoa seeds.
    6. Next put these roasted cocoa seeds into a blender and blend moderately.
    7. There you have it, your cocoa powder is ready to prepare a nice Chocolate drink.

    Note. If you over blend the roasted cocoa seeds it turns into a cocoa paste or chocolate paste. 

    How to Make Coconut Oil

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    Coconut oil

    Coconut oil is what you can do yourself at home

    What you need;

    1. Coconut; well chopped into small pieces. It makes it easier to blend or grind this way.
    2. Blender or grinder; use a high speed blender rated around 700W and above.
    3. Sieve bag
    4. Bucket of clean water.
    5. Another bucket to hold the  coconut fibre residue.
    6. Cooking pot; to cook the coconut milk until oil is formed.
    7. cooker.

     Procedure;

    blender

    Blend the coconut chops. Use water to blend. Blend to as smooth as possible.

    Pour the blended coconut juice into the sieve clot bag which is partially submerged in a bucket of clean water.

    Making coconut ou$

    Using your hand and making sure that the coconut mixture in the sieve cloth bag is submerged in water, squeeze the bag to extract the coconut milk into the water.

    Only pour into the sieve bag, the amount of blended coconut mixture you can handle at a time.

    When done, cover the bucket containing the coconut milk/ water mixture for about 5 hours for settlement to take place.

    The coconut milk should settle on top of the water.

    Carefully scoop the coconut milk into a cooking pot.

    Place the coconut milk in the cooking pot on the cooker, set the cooker to medium heat.

    Coconut oil

    Bring the coconut milk to boil. Stirring intermittently until it becomes pasty. When it becomes a thick paste (creamy white) oil will start to form. Continue stirring until the thick paste becomes brown. By this time more oil has been formed. As oil is formed the brown residue continues to reduce until  coconut oil formed is much more than the brown residue.. There will still be some brown residue left when done. Don’t let the brown residue burn or else a black coconut oil will result.

    Allow coconut oil to cool down before pouring into a bottle.

    coconut oil

    Note; the volume of oil produced is much smaller than the quantity of coconut processed.My experience in making coconut oil for this article; Ten standard coconut  produced about 25cl of coconut oil.