How Chocolate is Made
BEAN PROCESSING
AT THE FARM
We source our beans exclusively from Latin America (primarily from Venezuela) working with co-ops that gather cacao fruit from small farms and growers, and process the fruit into cacao beans ready to be exported. ​
Cacao fruit varies in color, and has a thick outer skin. Inside, the cacao beans are surrounded by a juicy white fruit that - on its own- tastes bright and tropical.
This part of the cacao fruit decomposes during the fermentation process, but it gives cacao its fruity flavor notes.
After fermentation, the beans are laid out on large outdoor drying patios to dry in the sun. This is the last step of the process at the farm before it's bagged and shipped to us!
​​SORTING
Once at our shop, we sort the beans by hand to make sure we are only moving forward with the best beans. It can take up to 3 days to sort enough beans for a roast.​
ROASTING
Once we have about 300 pounds of sorted beans, it’s time for a roast! We only roast one origin at a time. A roast takes about 3 hours. We use an antique Roure-Ball roasted from 1940s France, which tumbles the beans over an open flame. We roast at a low temperature which allows us more control over the final roasted flavor profile of the bean.
WINNOWING
Once they’re cooled, the beans are ready to be winnowed, a process that separates the meaty interior of the bean (the nib) from the papery outer shell (the husk). The entire winnowing process for a single roast can take a couple of weeks. We use a machine called a winnower, which cracks the bean open and separates the husk from the nib. But the winnower isn't perfect, so we then sift the winnowed beans by hand to even more finely remove the husk before winnowing one more time. We need just the nibs to make chocolate.
GRINDING CHOCOLATE
This is where chocolate is made. These grinders use solid granite wheels on a granite base to crush nibs with sugar into chocolate.
This is where the chocolate percentage comes into play because it is, essentially, a recipe. We decide the percentage for single origins when we taste the beans raw and get a sense of their flavor profile. The percentage refers to the amount of cacao by weight. For a 2 ingredient chocolate (like we make) that means that the remaining percentage accounts for the sugar. For example, if we are making 70% dark chocolate, 70% by weight is cacao nibs and 30% is sugar.
Grinding takes 3-4 continuous days. During this time, not only is the texture getting smoother, but harsher aromatics are being released and the flavor notes of the chocolate are being rounded and enhanced by the aeration. Once the chocolate is finished grinding, it is emptied and stored in block form where it is left to age to further round out the flavor profile.
Fun Fact: our grinders are named, Diamond, Cocoa Chanel and Baby Dolce
TEMPERING
Before we are able to get the chocolate to you, in bar or confection form, it has to be tempered. Tempering is the process that, through temperature and agitation, aligns the fat and the sugar crystals in a way that is going to yield the nice shine and snap that you want in chocolate.
To do this, we have machines that melt our chocolate up to a specific temperature and then bring it down to another specific temperature. This process takes about an hour or so depending on the amount of chocolate that we have. Once it's at the ideal temperature (now called tempered chocolate), we ladle it into the molds, let it set, and then unmold it. All of our products are wrapped by hand before they are ready to be sold.
PAINTING
The colors that you see on our confections come from tinted cocoa butter. We hand paint either the chocolate itself or the molds before the chocolate goes in. Because the cocoa butter comes from chocolate, when the chocolate is unmolded the paint sticks to it, instead of the mold. Our amazing confection team pulls from their creative minds to come up with the designs and use many different tools and techniques to make each piece unique.
CONFECTION MAKING
After painting, the molds get shelled with tempered chocolate, by pouring it in the mold, letting it set briefly and then emptying the rest of the chocolate, creating a shell that will set hard into the mold.
Once all the shells are made, the fillings are made and piped into them. We make our fillings using local ingredients when possible, like cream from Homeland Creamery, strawberries from the farmers market or herbs from our garden.
Once the fillings have set in the shells, they get capped with a layer of tempered chocolate.
When the cap sets, then they are released from the molds and ready for you!
Not all of our confections are made in molds, some are made in slabs, cut and then dipped in tempered chocolate and sometimes we make hand-rolled truffles. (The rolled chocolates that look like the truffle mushrooms, hence, their name.)
ICE CREAM MAKING
We make our ice cream from scratch using local cream and milk from Homeland Creamery. Our ice cream style is French, or custard, style and is made using techniques that Danielle learned in culinary school and during her restaurant years.
Our dairy free ice creams are coconut milk based with a recipe developed by Danielle shortly after we started making ice cream in 2009. We wanted to have a creamy offering that didn’t have dairy.
When possible, we use local ingredients for our flavors.
