Chocolate, aloe vera and more

I recently learned form CBeebies that aloe vera plants are very easily divided and potted on. We now have lots of babies. I think, but will have to check, that the fleshy bit inside the leaves can be added to juices and smoothies as well as rubbed on bruises and burns.



We're still looking at chocolate in greater detail. We took some brown and white paint and created every shade we could in between. We then wrote on the dark end what dark chocolate has more and less of (more cacao solids less cacao butter) and so on for milk and white chocolate.



We have made a chocolate time line starting with record of it's consumption as a bitter drink by the Maya right through to the invention of the mass production of the chocolate bar by Frys in the eighteen hundreds. Our timeline includes details of machinery inventions which enhanced the processing of the beans, opening of chocolate houses, expeditions to the New World seeking gold which turned up cacao instead - and more.



We asked why in the ancient world cacao was a bitter drink s opposed to the sweet stuff we have today. We looked at where sugar cane may grow in the ancient world and how difficult it would be to transport different food stuffs so they could be combined.

We read Chocolate Cake by Michael Rossen.

We planted our seed potatoes too today. Busy, busy, busy...