Dandelion Chocolate
Bean-to-bar chocolate coming to the Mission late summer
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Yay! This may not look like much, but it’s a pretty big deal to us. We’ve been working for the last few months to get our health permit to become fully legal to sell at farmer’s markets, retail stores, etc. We’ve started moving some of our larger machines to a commercial kitchen in San Jose, passed the food safety exams, and gotten high marks on our actual inspection. However, California has special food service rules called CalCode that require all machines to be NSF approved. Since chocolate-making equipment doesn’t generally exist on a super small scale, or when it does, it never has this certification, we had to hire third-party certification agencies and make some modifications before the machines could be approved. We’re excited and hopefully you will be seeing us at some new markets soon.
posted by todd
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On Monday, we had the pleasure of touring a few chocolatiers around the factory. Cristina of Kika’s Treats, Jewel of {cocoa}, Anastasia of Sweet Revolution, and Christine of Neo Cocoa came down to the garage to learn more about making chocolate from the bean.
We thought the best way to illustrate the process was to make chocolate together. In a few hours, we sorted, roasted, cracked, winnowed, and started melanging a batch of Costa Rican beans. We also let the chocolatiers try tempering with our Selmi. It took a minute for each of them to get the hang of the pedal depositor, and we threw back a few more bars than usual. But, they were excited to test out the machine and see how easily and consistently it tempers.
Each of these women gave us a lot of great information about making chocolate confections. We asked questions about the viscosity, consistency of flavor, and flavor profiles of wholesaled chocolate. Their answers will be incredibly helpful as we scale up production.
We also swapped treats. The chocolatiers went home with lots of bars, and we spent most of the afternoon snacking on Anastasia’s delicious caramels.
posted by alice
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We’re headed back to Potrero Hill this Saturday to sell our bars. Check us out at the New Taste Marketplace from 12-5 PM at St. Gregory’s Church, 500 DeHaro Street. We’ll have new bars from Venezuela for you to try!
posted by alice
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We finished our bean inspection table that we mentioned a little while ago. We’re really happy with how it came out. To make the table, we first talked about the design before sketching some ideas out on paper. Once we had a general design we were happy with, we started the real production process.
The first step in that process is modeling the pieces in AutoCAD. It took a few iterations to get something we were happy with. Once we had everything modeled, we used MasterCAM to create the toolpaths for the CNC desktop router we’d be using to cut out the pieces. Getting the toolpaths exactly how we wanted them also took a bit of time, but we ended up with a nice, efficient cut. After getting everything set up in the digital world, we went to the Tech Shop to bring the parts to life. We started with an air cut to make sure our toolpath wouldn’t hit anything (work holding, bottom of table, etc) and then we cut the pieces out of foam. The foam pieces looked good, so we started cutting the pieces out of HDPE. We had to adjust the feed rates slightly, but, after a little less than an hour, the parts were all done. After that, we assembled the parts, added the mesh, and sealed the joints using a food grade silicone sealant and the table was done!
posted by cam
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Todd once mentioned that he makes banana bread with cocoa nibs. The idea stuck with me, and I’ve been eager to try. I grew up on my grandma’s Southern banana bread- a dense cake, with lots of sugar and buttermilk. I love her recipe, but I thought that our nibs would pair better with bolder flavors and a lighter texture. So, I worked from recipes from Martha Stewart and Smitten Kitchen, adding in our nibs.
The bread was wonderful. The cocoa nibs softened in the oven, but maintained a bite. They accentuated the flavors of the spiced batter without adding an overpowering chocolate taste. The bread was a little like my grandma’s; it was still sweet, with the tang of buttermilk. But, the layers of flavor in this recipe went far beyond a more typical version. I’d make this again any day- it’s a delicious variation on one of my favorites.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter at room temperature, plus more for pan
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour, plus more for pan
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1/2 cup cocoa nibsINSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan, set aside.
2. Cream butter and light brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and beat to incorporate.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined. Add bananas, buttermilk, vanilla, bourbon, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves; mix to combine. Stir in nibs, and pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let rest in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.posted by alice
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It’s important to inspect the beans before throwing them in the roaster as there can be lots of junk tagging along in the bag. We decided to build a bean inspection table (a glorified bin with some mesh to let the small junk fall through) to make that step better. We’ve taken some classes at the Tech Shop in the past and this seemed like the perfect time to apply those skills. We modeled the parts using AutoCAD and created the toolpaths using MasterCAM. The video shows the desktop router cutting the pieces out of HDPE. Now we just need to assemble those pieces, add the mesh, and seal everything and we’ll have a fully FDA compliant inspection table.
posted by cam
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As much as we like to eat plain chocolate bars all day, we needed an excuse to try baking with our chocolate and seeing how well it worked in mousses, cakes, pies, pot de cremes, ice cream, etc. We decided on doing a dessertsum — it’s like dimsum, but instead of plates of small Cantonese dishes, we had tiny dessert bites spread out over an evening. We ended up making about 30 desserts in total — and had massive sugar overload. Here are a few shots from the evening; hopefully we will do some events like this when our chocolate factory / cafe opens later this year.
(thanks to Mark and Elaine for the photos).
posted by todd
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Recently, my wife, Elaine, started taking a class at Stanford about the history and art of the book. The class spends their nights looking through ancient manuscripts and poring over type in Green Library. In the last class, the professor posed the hypothetical question: ”if you came upon a mountain of books and had 20 minutes to save 20 of them, how would you choose?”
Apparently, there is an answer to this — or at least an approach you can take in evaluating a book from an aesthetic and craft, rather than a content, perspective. The idea is that there are seven levels of book craft connoisseurship — a simple framework consisting of the different questions you can ask and answer when examining a book. These range from as basic as: “is the font bold or italic?”… all the way down to who was the punch maker and at which foundry. These questions provide a common vocabulary provide a way to think about the book making craft.
I found this fascinating and thought it would be interesting to apply this same line of thinking to chocolate. If you started from knowing very little about chocolate and wanted to expand your understanding of a particular bar, what would be your framework for learning and going a level deeper? What details would you look for and what questions would you ask? After discussing with Cam, we jotted down some quick notes. I’d love to hear from other chocolate makers and enthusiasts if this seems about right, fill in some gaps, or present an alternate opinion:
The 10 Levels of Chocolate Appreciation
#1 Type — What type of chocolate is it? Is it dark, milk, or white?… or possibly compound (candy bar chocolate with the cocoa butter swapped out for something else).
#2 Aesthetics — is the bar tempered properly, has it bloomed? Does it have flaws, bubbles, or mold release marks? What about the packaging and unwrap experience?
#3 Chocolatier — Who made this bar? Not necessarily the maker of the chocolate, but who tempered, molded and packaged it? What is their story?
#4 Percentage — What percentage cocoa products does this bar have? Why?
#5 Ingredients — What else did they add? Vanilla to even out flavors? Lecithin or cocoa butter to change the viscosity and mouthfeel? How did each of these affect the experience?
#6 Flavor notes — What do you taste and when? How does the flavor evolve?
#7 Country (or countries) of origin — Where did these beans come from? How does the flavor of this bar differ from similar bars from the same region?
#8 Chocolate maker — Who made the chocolate (if not the same as #2). What’s their story? How was the chocolate changed by the chocolatier in #3?
#9 Plantation / Farmer — More specific than #7, where did these beans come from? What’s their lineage? Who is the farmer and what’s their process for harvesting, fermenting, and drying the beans?
#10 Chocolate Making process — What parts of the maker’s process affected the final flavor or mouthfeel and in what ways?
This last one is interesting and best illustrated by a story that Cam told me. Steve DeVries, an expert chocolate maker, was judging a chocolate competition. Immediately after trying one chocolate, he spit it out, shocking the other judges and the person that had made the chocolate. Steve explained that he could tell by taste and texture that the chocolate had been over-refined and was giving him that “dirt mouth” sensation that lingers on your tongue and would prevent him from tasting anything else. He said he could tell that the chocolate maker had used a ball mill and had let the chocolate refine for too long. Everyone was amazed, as are we, at his level of understanding.
One of the great things about chocolate is that it’s easy to enjoy. At the same time, we’ve found that the more we learn, the deeper the experience can be. So, if you’re a fellow chocolate lover, tell us how you enjoy your favorite chocolate and what you look (and taste) for.
posted by todd
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We had fun and met some great people at the Homegrown Marin Market. I had missed the fresh stroopwafels at one of the previous markets, but I made sure to hit the Stroopwerks table early this time. Also, thanks to Jere of Biddy McCool’s for taking the picture and the oatmeal cookies (they were delicious)!
posted by cam
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After seeing the magra in action in Costa Rica, we ordered one and it was just delivered. We haven’t had time to do a systematic analysis of our beans, but we had to try it out:
posted by cam
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We went to the New Taste Market in Portrero Hill last weekend. We didn’t have quite as much space as we’re used to, but Alice made it work:
It’s always fun talking to people about chocolate and the market had a really good vibe:
If you missed us last weekend (or if you’re craving more), we’ll be at the Marin Homegrown Market on Sunday (4/10) from 11am to 5pm at the Marin Fencing Academy (827 4th Street, San Rafael).
posted by cam
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I had a fantastic time at the Underground Market last weekend. It’s exciting to feel the momentum building behind our chocolate. We brought bars from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Madagascar. We encouraged each person to taste all three and to choose a favorite. Madagascar was the most popular overall, but Dominican and Costa Rican had clear supporters as well.
If you missed the chance to try, I’ll be at the New Taste Marketplace with Cam this Saturday from 4-9 PM. The market’s at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, 500 DeHaro Street in Potrero Hill.
I love the energy of these markets. Hopefully we’ll be at a few more later in the month. Part of the fun is meeting the other vendors and tasting their products. We got a lot of support and delicious samples from the tables next to ours: Vickle’s Pickles and Little Knock. I’m looking forward to more great food this weekend. Come by and check it out!
Here are a few pictures of our booth, and Todd looking very proud.
posted by alice
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Recently I visited my friend Steve and he mentioned a classic Brazilian treat that I had never heard of. A brigadeiro is kind of like a truffle, but a thousand times easier to make. You simply take a can of sweetened condensed milk, cocoa powder, butter, and sugar, and then cook them in a saucepan until some of the moisture evaporates. When cooled, this creates a gooey, sticky ball that you can coat in whatever you like.
Recently, we worked with a machinist to develop a cocoa butter press and I’ve been left with a lot of excess cocoa powder. This seemed like a perfect excuse to try out something new. There are many different variants of the brigadeiro online, many of them using Nestle Quick as the powder. Since our cocoa powder has no added sugar, I decided to add sugar and reduce the cocoa powder in our version.
INGREDIENTS
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon sugar
For the toppings:
cocoa powder
pearl sugar
… or anything else you like
INSTRUCTIONS
1) Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.
2) Keep stirring until thickened (you should be able to see the bottom of the pan for a few seconds after each scrape).
3) Pour into a small glass pan (3x5), set aside to cool.
4) Once cooled, roll into small balls and coat with a topping.
That’s it. It really was a simple and easy treat to make. It didn’t taste quite like anything I had tried before, but was very tasty… sort of like a gooey, sticky toffee ball. The pearl sugar added a nice crunch but made it very sweet. The ones I coated in cocoa powder had a nice, chocolate-y punch. I tried a version coated in nibs, but I wouldn’t recommend it as it was a bit overwhelming.On the chocolate making front, it was good to try this recipe as learned something new about our cocoa powder. The germ is a dense part of the bean that we usually remove as part of our winnowing process. This cocoa powder was made from some quick test chocolate that we hadn’t winnowed fully and so you could actually taste small bits of germ in the center of the brigadeiros. It wasn’t bad actually, they were almost like small, chocolate poppy seeds, but definitely something we will thoroughly remove next time unless we are specifically aiming for that texture.
posted by todd
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We’re coming to the Underground Market this Saturday, from 11 AM to 4 PM. This time the market will be held at Public Works, 161 Erie Street, San Francisco. We have bars from Madagascar, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica. We’d love to see you there!
For more information, check out ForageSF.
