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Our Chocolate is Now Kosher-Certified!

March 9, 2020 by Leah Hammerman

[et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text]Leah has been our Culinary Liaison since 2017. She introduces our cocoa ingredients to professional chefs, bakers, baristas, and brewers across the country. This is her first post for the blog, and she’s going to share the story of how and why she obtained a kosher certification for our single-origin, one-and-two-ingredient chocolate.

My mom had been nudging me about getting Dandelion Chocolate kosher-certified since my first day on the job. Mom’s always right, right? In fact, I attribute my career in the food industry to her because baking together has always been our weekly tradition.

My family keeps a kosher kitchen, which means that in our house, we never mix any dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, etc.) with any meat products (beef, chicken) within the same meal. This means cheeseburgers or ice cream after a chicken dinner are big no-no’s. We also look for kosher symbols on packaged food to inform us that the ingredients are in alignment with our family’s dietary laws. There are many different kosher symbols, but some of them look like this:

Growing up, the chocolate options for dessert were fairly limited. For as long as I can recall, Scharffen Berger had been our best bet. (Parenthetically, our company’s own early history began soon after “Big Chocolate” bought Scharffen Berger.) Both my mom and I have always seen the opportunity for Dandelion Chocolate in the kosher market. And after receiving a couple of wholesale inquiries from kosher-certified businesses who were interested in buying our chocolate, I justified researching what the kosher certification process would mean for us.

I had hoped the certification process for our chocolate would be simple since we only use two ingredients—cocoa beans and organic cane sugar. This also designates our chocolate as pareve, meaning it’s not made with dairy or any animal derivatives and it can therefore be eaten with any meal. Furthermore, our chocolate-making equipment wasn’t previously used for non-kosher production.

I was connected to Rabbi Welton of the Vaad of Northern California, a.k.a. Sunrise Kosher, through the Illuminoshi, the not-so-secret society of SF Bay Area Jews who work in food. Caitlin, our Director of Production and I gave Rabbi Welton a tour of both of our San Francisco production facilities (Valencia Street and 16th Street) so he could see the process, the equipment, and the product first-hand.

Soon thereafter, we received our official kosher certification. It has been effective since August 2019, and it applies to both of our SF factories and to all of the one- and two-ingredient cocoa bean and chocolate products we make (single-origin chocolate bars, cocoa nibs, ground chocolate, Chef’s Chocolate, whole roasted beans, single-bottles of Hot Chocolate Mix, and our soon-to-come chocolate chips).

Sunrise Kosher is based in the East Bay, and its accreditation is accepted nationally by kosher consumers who abide by varying degrees of kosher stringency. We’re planning to update our packaging (hopefully in late 2020), at which point we’ll revisit adding the kosher symbol. Until then, we have the digital certification to show for it!

One might say we’re celebrating a “Bar” Mitzvah! My mom and I say mazel tov to that.

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Recipe for Nibbuns

December 3, 2019 by Karen Solomon

Breakfast doesn’t get much more decadent than our nib-studded, sugar-coated morning bun with a labyrinth of chocolate custard swirling through the middle. This recipe makes an excellent weekend or holiday project because the dough and custard must both be made a day in advance. You can also make the filling and cinnamon nib sugar ahead of time, but wait to assemble the buns until the day you plan to bake and serve them. The cinnamon and yeasted dough in this bun pair well with coffee notes, spice, and nutty flavor profiles. The nibs in this recipe are ground, which intensifies their impact a little. This recipe is from our book, Making Chocolate: From Bean to Bar to S’more.

Makes 10 to 12 Nibbuns

INGREDIENTS

Bun Dough

1 teaspoon / 3 grams active dry yeast
3 tablespoons / 42 grams / 1 1⁄2 ounces sugar
1 large egg
1⁄2 cup / 110 grams / 4 ounces heavy cream
2 ¼ cups / 385 grams / 13 ½ ounces all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1⁄2 teaspoon / 1.5 grams kosher salt
Pinch of freshly-grated nutmeg
3 tablespoons / 42 grams / 1 ½ ounces unsalted butter, melted, plus more for brushing
Nonstick cooking spray, for the bowl and the muffin tin

Chocolate Custard

3⁄4 cup / 113 grams / 4 ounces 70% Chef’s Chocolate, Ground Chocolate, or chopped chocolate
1 large egg
1⁄4 teaspoon / 1 gram vanilla extract
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons / 150 grams / 5 ounces whole milk
1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Filling

1⁄2 cup packed / 110 grams / 3 1⁄2 ounces light brown sugar
½ cup / 60 grams / 2 ounces cocoa nibs

Cinnamon Nib Sugar

1⁄4 cup / 30 grams / 1 ounce cocoa nibs
1 cup / 200 grams / 7 ounces sugar
4 teaspoons / 8 grams ground cinnamon
Pinch of kosher salt

DIRECTIONS

Make the Bun Dough

In a small bowl, whisk together the yeast, sugar, and 1⁄2 cup (110 grams / 4 ounces) of warm water. Set the bowl aside for about 10 minutes, or until foamy.

In a small bowl or cup, whisk the egg with the cream. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and nutmeg.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the yeast liquid and the dry ingredients. Mix on medium speed until the dough begins to come together; then stream in the egg and cream mixture, followed by the melted butter. Continue mixing until the dough is smooth and elastic and pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl, about 6 minutes.

Remove the dough from the bowl and place it in a large mixing bowl or container that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray or lightly greased. The dough will rise significantly; make sure the bowl has enough room for the dough to double in size. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight to develop the flavor and elasticity of the dough.

Make the Chocolate Custard

Melt the chocolate in a medium bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally. Once melted, remove the bowl from the heat and set it aside.

Whisk the egg and vanilla in another medium bowl to break up the yolk.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the milk and cinnamon just until steaming. Gradually stream a small amount of the warm milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to avoid cooking the egg. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan, and cook the custard over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom as you go, using a heatproof spatula. Be careful not to let the mixture get too hot as it will curdle. Cook until the mixture has thickened and will coat the back of a wooden spoon.

Remove the custard from the heat and immediately pour it over the melted chocolate. Whisk thoroughly to combine. Pour it through a fine-mesh strainer, and if the custard appears chunky or curdled, use a handheld immersion blender to emulsify it. Pour the custard into an airtight container and refrigerate it for at least 12 hours, or overnight.

Make the Filling

Combine the brown sugar and nibs in a small bowl. Set aside.

Make the Cinnamon Nib Sugar

Place the cocoa nibs in a coffee grinder or small food processor and pulse until they are finely ground. Sift the nibs through a fine-mesh strainer and combine the nib powder with the sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl, whisking thoroughly. Set aside.

Shape, Cut, and Bake the Buns

Generously coat a standard-size muffin tin with nonstick spray. After the dough has risen overnight, remove it from the refrigerator and let it rest at room temperature for at least 20 minutes.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and roll it into a rectangle about 1⁄4 inch thick, approximately 12 × 16 inches.

Using an offset spatula or a rubber spatula, spread the chocolate custard in an even layer over the dough, leaving a 1⁄2-inch border around the edges. Sprinkle the brown sugar and cocoa nib mixture evenly over the custard.

Beginning at the longer edge of the rectangle, tightly roll the dough to form a log. Slice the log into 2-inch segments. Place one segment into each cavity of the prepared muffin tin, spiral-side up. Allow the buns to rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (176.7°C). Bake the buns for 20 minutes, or until golden brown, rotating the tin 180 degrees halfway through to ensure even coloring.

Allow the buns to cool in the muffin tin for at least 10 minutes. Prepare a small bowl of melted butter, and using a pastry brush, coat each bun with a thin layer of melted butter. Immediately roll each buttered bun in the bowl of cinnamon nib sugar, coating the entire surface thoroughly. Serve immediately.

Recipe for Brazilian Brigadeiros

October 25, 2019 by Karen Solomon

Kika is one of our product managers, and you might know her as the Kika of Kika’s Treats, the San Francisco company whose chocolate-covered caramelized cookies used to sit on our shelves. Shortly after our Valencia Street café opened its doors in 2010 she did a pop-up in our pastry kitchen, and we’ve been dreaming of the baked goods and confections she made when she was behind the stoves ever since. Her Brazilian cheese bread? Legendary. Her fresh fig and chocolate ganache galette? We’d do anything for a crumb. But every time we’ve thought about her chocolatey, creamy brigadeiros (pronounced bree-guh-DAY-rows) over the years, we’ve gotten more than a little swoony. (Oh, and by the way, Todd once made his own brigadeiros with cocoa powder he made himself instead of nibs. Have a look at his recipe for Black and White Brigadeiros from the vaults.)

Let us explain.. Brigadeiros are an extremely popular truffle-like confection from Kika’s native Brazil that everyone makes at home for parties or special occasions. They’re as popular as chocolate-chip cookies. Usually they’re overwhelmingly dense and sweet from concentrated sweetened condensed milk and sweet chocolate, but we love Kika’s version because the sweetness is really tame, the texture melts in your mouth, and the flavor truly highlights the chocolate. What’s not to love, really? It’s our single-origin chocolate made fudgey and creamy as it’s ever been. Then Kika rolls each brig with nutty cocoa nibs for crunch (and to keep your fingers from getting too chocolatey!). This recipe quite literally puts our chocolate into your hands, so you can make the shape as elegant as you want it, or just free form it with kids in the kitchen.

Oh, and just a word about Chef’s Chocolate. If you’ve never baked with our Chef’s Chocolate before, it’s super easy to use. Chef’s Chocolate is not cocoa powder. It’s the same 70% cocoa-beans-and-sugar-only chocolate we use for making bars, but it’s ground until into lentil-sized pieces and it’s not tempered (meaning it’s not snappy and shiny). And rather than having to stop and chop it like baking chocolate, it’s designed to go anywhere chocolate chips can go, and melt really fast for any drink or pastry that calls for melted chocolate. This is what we use in our own pastry kitchens for our hot chocolate drinks and pastries. Give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Makes: About 50 one-inch candies

Time: About 80 minutes active time

Ingredients

Unsalted butter, for greasing, plus 1 tablespoon, divided
1 14-oz.can sweetened condensed milk
4 oz./120 grams/3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Camino Verde, Ecuador 70% Chef’s Chocolate
2 tablespoons light corn syrup (or glucose)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
About 12 oz./350 grams/2 cups Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania cocoa nibs (for rolling)

Method

Lightly butter a medium mixing bowl and set aside.

In a medium-sized heavy-bottomed pot, combine 1 tablespoon of the butter, the condensed milk, the chocolate, the corn syrup, and the salt. Place over low heat and stir it constantly with a rubber spatula to prevent burning and sticking, paying careful attention to scraping the bottom of the pot.

After 10-12 minutes, the mixture will start bubbling and thicken until it streaks across the bottom of the pot. Remove the pot from the heat and pour the mixture into the buttered bowl. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the mixture to prevent a skin from forming. Allow it to cool at room temperature for about 4 hours until it’s cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, lightly chop the cocoa nibs or gently pulse them in a food processor. Reduce them to the size of sprinkles, but be careful not to pulverize them too much. Pour them into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Grease your hands with butter and, using a tablespoon or a melon baller, scoop out rounded balls of the mixture and roll them between your hands. Place 4 or 5 at a time into the large bowl with the nibs. Tilt and shake the bowl until the brigadeiros are fully encrusted in the nibs.

Place each brigadeiro in paper candy cups or onto sheets of parchment paper to keep them from sticking.

Enjoy your brigadeiros right away and keep them away from heat. Store them refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week and let them come to room temperature before eating. Or for longer storage, double-wrap the brigadeiros in an airtight container and freeze them up to 3 months. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight and let them come to room temperature before serving.

Alice Medrich’s Chocolate Drops

October 17, 2019 by Karen Solomon

This recipe for chocolate cookies comes to us from Alice Medrich and Renewal Mill. Several years ago Todd was introduced to Alice, and he invited her for a tour and tasting at our Valencia Street factory shortly after it had opened its doors. Since then, Alice has been a kindred spirit in chocolate and she was also part of our 12 Nights of Chocolate event back in 2015. She is a celebrated cookbook writer specializing in chocolate, and we are constantly inspired by her work. She makes us blush when she tells us how she’s enjoyed watching us grow up. For this recipe, Alice is working with Renewal Mill, makers of okara flour, a gluten-free and grain-free ingredient upcycled from the pulp left after making fresh soy milk, and she’s combined it with our single-origin dark chocolate, nuts, and coconut to make this delicate, decadent cookie. Alice writes, “If chocolate mousse married a brownie, these cookies would be their offspring. Note: To measure okara flour, spoon it lightly (don’t pack it) into measures and sweep it level—or better still, use a scale.”

Makes 30-36 cookies

1 cup (100g) toasted pecan halves
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (22g) Renewal Mill okara flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
8 ounces (225g) Dandelion 70% Chef’s Chocolate, either Camino Verde, Ecuador or Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania
6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter
1 cup (200g) sugar
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 ½ teaspoons water
About 1 cup (42g) unsweetened dried shaved/flaked coconut
Flakey sea salt for topping (optional)

First, toast the pecans. Spread them on a sheet pan and bake in a 325°F oven for 9-12 minutes until fragrant and toasty. Cool them until crisp, then break or chop the nuts into coarse pieces. Set aside.

Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the okara flour with the baking soda and fine grain sea salt and set aside.

Put the chocolate and the butter in a medium stainless steel bowl. Set the bowl in a wide skillet filled with about one-half inch of water. Heat the water over high heat until it’s just barely simmering, then turn off the heat. Stir the chocolate and butter until they are melted and smooth.

Remove the bowl from the water. Stir in the sugar, salt, and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Add the eggs and the water and stir until well blended.

Stir in the flour mixture. Stir vigorously for a few seconds to aerate the batter slightly. Add the pecans. For shapelier cookies, refrigerate the batter for a few minutes to firm it slightly before baking.

To bake, scoop slightly rounded tablespoons of batter and place them 2 inches apart on the lined baking sheets. Top each scoop with a few crushed flakes of the sea salt if desired, and lots of coconut pieces. Bake 10-12 minutes or until the cookies are puffed, slightly cracked, and dry on the surface (though they should still feel soft when touched with a fingertip). Rotate the sheets from upper to lower and front to back about halfway through the cooking time to insure even baking.

Cool the cookies in the pan on a rack; the cookies will firm a bit as they cool. The cookies will keep in an airtight container for 2-3 days.

The 2017-2018 Sourcing Report is Ready

September 11, 2019 by Greg

I’m excited to say that we have finished our fourth annual(ish) Sourcing Report! These were huge years of growth for us and the industry at large, but also years when we learned some tough lessons. The first lesson was that it takes a lot longer to write a sourcing report than you might imagine, so we’ve decided to combine two years together. As always, our goal for this report is to help you learn and understand more about us and our chocolate, but more importantly, learn about the producers with whom we work. Each section of this report is dedicated to a single producer and we’ve tried our best to represent them in the way that they feel is most appropriate. This includes having each producer guide, contribute to, and review the content.

The first thing you might notice in this report is that we bought more cocoa in 2017 than we did in 2018. Does this mean that we’re shrinking? No, we are still growing, but this was our next big lesson: building in San Francisco takes a long time. We thought our new 16th Street Factory was going to be finished in 2018. Since we buy all of our cocoa one year in advance, this meant that we needed to buy a lot of beans in 2017 to prepare for our new facility, which is designed to use up to 200 tonnes of beans per year, and to supply our Valencia Street factory, which uses approximately 25 tonnes of cocoa annually, and our Kuramae factory, which uses around 30 tonnes. In 2017 we were excited to finally start buying larger quantities of beans and the producers with whom we work were thrilled. For cacao producers, having a customer buy more is almost always a great thing. The specialty cocoa industry is growing quickly and most producers have more supply than they have demand. Unfortunately, we were wrong about how long it would take to complete our new factory. The good news is that our new factory is open as of April 2019. The bad news is that we started buying larger quantities of beans too early, which means that we are still working through our backstock. This also means we incorrectly set expectations with the producers with whom we work. They have all been very understanding, but this is why we bought more beans in 2017 than in 2018. Our goal in working with producers is to buy the same quantity of beans from them or more year over year. We are not trying to find the cheapest cocoa that tastes good. We are trying to build longterm relationships with producers that grow over time so that we all benefit. Fortunately, our plan is to buy more beans in 2019 so we can get back on track with our producers.

In 2017 we also started our customer trip program in earnest. While we’ve done periodic customer trips over the years, we’ve now turned this into a consistent and core part of what we do. We’ve decided to visit three producers regularly: Maya Mountain Cacao in Belize, Zorzal Cacao in the Dominican Republic, and Kokoa Kamili in Tanzania. Each trip allows us to introduce our customers to a different view of cacao. Belize allows us to highlight cacao as an integral part of the local Maya culture. The Dominican Republic allows our customers to see what it is like to have cacao as a core part of a country’s economy. Tanzania allows us to bring people to an operation so far off the beaten path you have to drive two days to get there. I’m excited to lead each trip and to get to share a part of my life with people who are interested in learning more about cacao and the people who produce it.  For more information, please check out our website.

While things have changed here, there have also been changes in the industry. As an industry we are getting closer to having quality metrics for specialty cocoa, inspired by the work done for specialty coffee. Specialty coffee has a system known as Q grading developed by the Specialty Coffee Association that provides a well understood, trainable, and consistent methodology for scoring coffee. This score allows coffee producers to negotiate a price based on an understanding of how their coffee compares to the rest of the beans on the global market. Cocoa does not have a similar grading system. Several chocolate makers and industry members have developed systems over the years, but none of them are universally accepted as of yet. We haven’t even agreed on what to call specialty cocoa, er, I mean fine flavor cocoa. While we have our work cut out for us, we are making progress. My sense is that the goals of a unified system for cocoa evaluation are:
– To analyze unroasted beans to allow producers to evaluate small lots of cocoa in a very short time frame.
– To rely on cheap equipment (so that even small, poorer producers can use the methodology if they would like to).
– The ability to be trainable everywhere in the world.
– To yield a consistent score for cocoa beans that everyone can agree upon.
If we could accomplish these goals we’d be well on our way. Carla Martin and the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute have developed a protocol that gets us much closer than we’ve ever been before. We are now working on the last mile to agree on a way to use the protocol in order to create a score that can be used by everyone. I hope that our next sourcing report will start with a discussion of how great this new methodology has become.

Lastly, the biggest challenge that the specialty cocoa industry is facing now is that it has grown faster than the demand from chocolate makers. There are great beans everywhere! The overall quality of what we taste as samples has gone up dramatically just since 2014. But, there either needs to be larger makers or there needs to be a larger number of makers willing to buy these beans at a premium price. While I believe this will happen eventually, right now it is a struggle for many cocoa producers to sell everything they produce. In this report we’ll talk about some of these situations and how it has impacted the producers.

While we continued to grow in 2017 and 2018, 2019 is the year that we finished our new factory. This means that we’ll be able to increase our consumption of cocoa as we had planned to do two years ago. We are now connecting our customers to cocoa producers more closely than ever before through our trips, and we are on the verge of having a consistent system for evaluating cocoa from around the world. The specialty cocoa and craft chocolate industry are both growing, and I couldn’t be happier. With growth comes more learning, better livelihoods for producers, and, of course, more chocolate!

Read the 2017-2018 Sourcing Report

Greg D’Alesandre
Chief Sourcing Officer, Dandelion Chocolate

Pairing Sake with Chocolate
at Umami Mart

September 4, 2019 by Karen Solomon

Kayoko Akabori is one of the founders of Umami Mart, an Oakland importer and retailer of Japanese food, barware, and household goods, and an online blog of food and drink. Brandon, our staff accountant, is a huge fan of the store, and he noticed that they expanded their space to include a tasting bar that can host events. He made an introduction to Leah and Christine, who happily worked with the Umami Mart team to taste chocolate after chocolate, and sake after sake, to find complimentary flavors between them. Together they hosted a sold-out event to highlight how sake and single-origin chocolate are made, and how complimentary they can be side by side. Kayoko blogged a recap of the event, and she kindly allowed us to share it here.

A few weeks ago, we hosted an event with our neighbor across the bay, Dandelion Chocolate, for a special event pairing sakes with chocolates. The event focused on chocolate and sake production, and we tasted through Dandelion’s bars made in San Francisco and Japan, paired alongside sakes that are also from the Bay Area, and Japan. It was an awesome night of discovery and our taste buds were awakened!

The event came about because as a chocolate lovers, we weren’t getting quite the right pairings with sake – but we knew there’d be a pairing out there! There is a lot of literature written about sake and chocolate. Many Japanese blogs and books suggest pairing sweeter style sakes like sparkling sakes and nigoris with chocolate. But we tried these pairings over and over again, and it wasn’t quite clicking.

It was time to bring the chocolate pros in – Dandelion Chocolate from San Francisco. Tasting through the chocolates with Christine really helped us open our eyes on how to taste chocolate and the production method of chocolate (from cacao fruit bean to bar).

The resulting pairings did not involve one sparkling sake or nigori! In fact some of the sakes we paired alongside these dark and complex chocolates were on the dry side. The only only outlier that was on the sweet side was the aged, vermouth-like Hisui red, which worked wonders for the extra dark Ecuador 85% bar we tried at the end.

Dandelion opened an outpost in Kuramae, a neighborhood in Tokyo, in 2016 where they make and sell chocolate. We were lucky enough to taste one of the bars made in Tokyo, along with three others made in San Francisco. We had worked with Christine and Leah from Dandelion to come up with these chocolate/sake pairings:

Pairing 1
Cahabon, Guatemala 70% (made in SF) with Enter Gold Daiginjo (brewed in Aichi, Japan)

Pairing 2
Maya Mountain, Belize 70% (SF) with Den Nama (Oakland)

Pairing 3
Gola Rainforest, Sierra Leone 70% (Tokyo) with True Vision (Fukui)

Pairing 4
Camino Verde, Ecuador 85% (SF) with Hisui Red Rice (Kumamoto)

Christine started off the event by cutting open a cacao pod!

The pods were slimy and tart, and when chewed, definitely tasted like a mild bean.

The tasting led to many lively discussions with our guests. I had personally never tasted sakes and chocolates alongside one another before and was astounded by how one enhanced the other. We all learned so much about sake and chocolate, and how to taste each individually, and together.

As someone who has paired lots of savory foods with sake, pairing chocolate with sake was pretty intimidating. With a little guidance and help from the pros of chocolate, exploring outside our usual pairing comfort zone was eye-opening and ultimately delicious.

Thank you to everyone who attended the event – it was our first ticketed event at the bar and we were so happy that it was a packed house. A very special thanks to Christine from Dandelion – she was so knowledgable and gracious. We hope to partner with Dandelion again in the future!

Angela Pinkerton’s Torta Caprese With Cacao Nib Gelato And Cherry Confitura

July 9, 2019 by Karen Solomon

Pastry Chef Angela Pinkerton (Che Fico, Eleven Madison Park) is a talent, a creative force in pastry, and a friend. She has been there for us several times as a volunteer chef for our annual 12 Nights of Chocolate fundraiser for the SF/Marin Food Bank, and she recently joined us on a chef’s trip to the Dominican Republic to see how cacao is grown, fermented, and dried, and to learn how the chocolate-making process begins. While there, she visited Zorzal Cacao, and the gelato for this dessert takes inspiration from her visit to the origin. Angela tells us that steeping the nibs in cold milk and cream overnight helps extract, “the fruity perfume essence I remember from eating the raw cacao beans during the trip, and the toasty cocoa flavors we expect to enjoy.” Angela currently serves this dessert at Che Fico Alimentari as a memento to what she experienced with us in the DR.

Time: 90 minutes active time, plus overnight steeping
Serves: 10-12

Make the TORTA CAPRESE

1 ½ cups/180g walnuts
4 cups/342g 70% Camino Verde, Ecuador ground chocolate
¼ cup/55g cocoa butter
6 ounces/165g unsalted butter
6 eggs, separated
1 ¾ cup/210g powdered sugar
1 teaspoon/4g sea salt
2 Tablespoons dark rum or Maraschino (optional)

Grease a 9” round cake pan and line the pan with parchment, then grease the parchment. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Lightly toast the walnuts and let them cool. Chop the nuts until very fine.

In a medium saucepan over a hot water bath, melt the chocolate, cocoa butter, and butter together. Remove from heat and stir the mixture until cools.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and sea salt until light and fluffy.

In separate mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks.

Combine the cooled chocolate mixture with the yolks until thoroughly combined, then add the walnuts.

Carefully fold in the egg whites in three batches; the batter may look broken, but it will smooth out once it’s fully incorporated. Stir in the rum or Maraschino, if using.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a crust forms on top. (Note that a cake tester will not come out totally clean, but it shouldn’t have crumbs stuck to it. It will be coated in chocolate, but not gooey).

Cool the cake completely at room temperature. It can be served immediately or wrapped and chilled overnight. To remove the cake from the pan, quickly and evenly warm the pan on top of a burner or with a torch and invert the cake onto a plate. Peel off the parchment before cutting. For best results, slice the cake with a hot, clean knife.

Make the COCOA NIB GELATO

(Makes 1 quart. Note that you will need a thermometer and an ice cream maker.)

¾ cup/100g Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania cocoa nibs
1 cup/225g heavy cream
1 ½ cups/675g whole milk
½ cup/50g dried milk powder
¾ cup/155g sugar
¼ cup/38g dextrose

Lightly toast the nibs in a 350°F oven for 5-7 minutes just until you can smell the chocolate. Combine the hot nibs with the cream and milk and let them steep overnight.

Strain the nibs from the milk and cream and heat the milk mixture to 104°F.

Meanwhile, in a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the milk powder, sugar, and dextrose.

Once the milk reaches temperature, whisk in the dry ingredients and continue to heat the milk until it reaches 185°F.

Remove from heat and cool the ice cream base in an ice bath, stirring often. You can cure the base in the refrigerator overnight. Spin the base in an ice cream machine following the manufacturer’s instructions and freeze until you’re ready to use it.

Make the CHERRY CONFITURA

4 cups cherries
¾ cup/151g sugar
1⁄2 teaspoon citric acid
1 Tablespoon dark rum or Maraschino
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Pre-freeze a metal mixing bowl.

Pit the cherries and cut them in half. In a medium saucepan, combine them with the sugar and then cook over medium-high heat until al dente, about 7 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove the cherries and transfer them to a frozen bowl to stop the cooking.

Continue to cook the remaining syrup until it thickens, about another 5-7 minutes. Pour the syrup into the bowl with the cherries and stir in the citric acid. Cool the bowl in the freezer for 15-20 minutes or until chilled and thickened. Add the rum or Maraschino and the lemon juice to thin the sauce as needed. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Make the CANDIED WALNUTS

(Makes about 1 pint)

2 cups/300g walnuts
2 cups/500g water
2 cups/500g sugar
kosher salt to taste

Chop the walnuts into bite-sized pieces, then sift out the dust. Bring the water and sugar to a boil, add the nuts, then reduce the heat to simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes, until the nuts have become semi translucent and saturated with sugar.

Drain the nuts from the syrup and spread them in a single layer onto parchment-lined sheet trays. Sprinkle them lightly with the salt and bake in the oven at 300°F for 15-20min until the nuts are dry, brown, and toasted, stirring halfway through to prevent clumps. Cool completely, then store them airtight in a cool, dry place.

To assemble the dish:

Warm slices of the cake in a 425°F oven until hot to the touch, about 3-5 minutes. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the cherry confitura on one side of the cake. Sprinkle on the candied walnuts and top with a scoop of the gelato. Serve immediately.

The Story of Dandelion Chocolate Japan: The Shops, The Culture, and The Secret Ingredient to Japan’s Hot Chocolate

June 28, 2019 by Karen Solomon

Hi! It’s me, Karen S., and I’m the content manager and the editor of the blog. I’ve been in love with Hello Kitty since 1976, I lived in Japan in the late 1990’s and I’ve returned to visit a couple of times, I studied taiko drumming for several years under Seiichi Tanaka, the man who brought the martial art of giant drums to North America, and I can roll an avocado maki like a champ. In short, I am a lifelong Japanophile. Pair this with my deep love of chocolate, and you can see why I would want to learn all that I could about Dandelion Chocolate Japan.

When I started my job here, I was entirely delighted to learn about our multiple locations in Japan. But when I started poking around on our website and such, I realized it was really hard to get info about our business across the Pacific. I’ve always wanted to know more, and I was beyond delighted when Tomo, one of our partners, recently spoke in depth on our Japanese presence at a company meeting. I quickly asked Elaine for an introduction, and over green tea and dried edamame snacks, he and I spoke for over two hours, with me taking notes as quickly as possible, to get a better understanding of Dandelion Chocolate Japan.

KURAMAE

This is our first and flagship location in Japan that opened in 2016, and it contains a full factory, as well as a café, a retail shop, and the Bean to Bar Lab next door.

A lot of thought went into choosing the location for this first store. It would have been easy to plunk an American chocolate shop into the middle of a high-traffic modern touristy area, but Seiji, who brought Dandelion Chocolate to Japan, wanted the shop to feel like it belonged to the local community, and for it to be a mixture of old world and new. This area of Tokyo, south of Asakusa, is near a large temple that attracts many visitors from outside Japan. But it’s also quite close to an elementary school and a park frequented by locals. Seiji really loves this spot because of its blend of traditional culture and modern day life, and its outdoor café is very popular.

Kuramae is the only place to tour our factory in Japan. And as of March, 2019, they are making about 3,000 bars a month. They have made several single-origin bars, all sold in the shop along with about the same amount of our bars made in SF.

On these retail shelves and in others across the country, there are collaboration products that you can only find in Japan, including a mochi made with cocoa nibs, ground chocolate, and sweet red bean paste, and a chocolate tile made with pressed sugar.

This is also home to the production kitchen that bakes pastries for most of our other cafés in the country (though Kyoto and Ise also have kitchens). And, since its expansion in December, 2018, the kitchen also creates the retail products sold in the Japanese stores, including the shortbread cookies served with hot drinks, and the gâteau au chocolat.

Guests can sign up for a factory tour to learn how we make chocolate, or sign up for classes like Chocolate 101 and 201. And, guests can also find events like taste pairing sessions, interesting talks from chocolate industry leaders and scientists from all over the world, and occasionally, even local musicians.

In December, 2018, the Bean to Bar Lab opened up next door, and this is our showplace of chocolate education from all over the world. Not only is this where the classes and talks take place, but this is a second retail shop featuring a curated selection of well-made chocolate from about eight or nine other makers. Here we also teach hands-on classes such as baking with chocolate and ground chocolate taught by professional pastry chefs. Read more

The famous chalkboard: Elaine is the original artist of the beautiful chalkboards in our San Francisco shops. She helped launch the chalkboard in Kuramae in collaboration with Tomo, and Tomo went on to design the chalkboard displays in the Ise, Kamakura, and Kyoto locations, as well as some pop-up shops.

ISE

This was the next Japanese location to open in December of 2016, and it contains a retail shop and café. This cool, old building features some exposed brick in the interior—just like we have on Valencia Street—and it used to be the office of the post office and telephone company.

This area is a destination for local and global tourists alike who visit the area for the iconic Ise Jingu shrine—many of whom, as is the custom, come here to buy small gifts to take home. Seiji was immediately inspired by the building and the holy power of the shrine. Both Tomo and Seiji love to come and visit this shop because of the general feeling of the building; it feels cozy and harmonious with its lush surroundings. We have a good partnership with the building owners and some really kind and regular customers. There is a general peaceful feeling about the place. Read more

Hot chocolate in Japan: We are certainly known for our hot chocolate, and in Japan, that same beloved drink has a little twist. Each of our Japanese locations adds just a dash of a special elixir to make their hot chocolate unique. In Kyoto, we add just a bit of honey and ginger to make the flavor more complex. Our other shops add their own signature black tea to the house hot chocolate to make it less sweet and more thirst quenching. And some of our locations, like Kuramae and Kamakura, use tea from local tea houses and producers. Tomo says it’s just a splash of tea—just enough to give the drink a bit of complexity and bitterness (much like the way bitters are used in cocktails).

KAMAKURA

Tomo feels that this location is probably the one most similar to West Coast culture, with its ocean views and mellow surfers and swimmers who stop by to fuel up. Opened in February, 2017, this café and retail shop is in the oceanside Shonan area of Yokohama—a place that’s warm with a good beach for those escaping Tokyo for the weekend. Kamakura is also an old samurai town, and as a result, there are many Zen temples to visit, and it gives the region a very simple and clean vibe.

This location is our only one in Japan to have a separate breakfast menu, and the popular chocolate croissant is a hit with commuters into the capital who stop by on their way to the morning train. There are also plenty of locals who linger at the tables long into the morning. This is also the location of the Zen and Chocolate class (which helped inspire the Mindfulness Tea class at our Los Angeles pop-up). The city is working hard to present itself as the “mindfulness city”, and we are so happy to be a part of that. Kamakura is also known as a city of flowers, as evidenced by the many hydrangeas that bloom in June and July. Read more

KYOTO

The café and retail shop in Kyoto is something of a tourist attraction, as local and international tourists visit the area to take in Japanese culture, including the numerous temples. In June of 2018 this location opened its doors. And to make it feel like it’s part of its community, there’s also a Zen garden on premises.

The Cacao Bar of Kyoto

Kyoto is also home to the Cacao Bar, a sit-down space for special menu items, events, and educational opportunities, and we opened that in August, 2018. Expect more classes and workshops in the future, as Cacao Bar may soon be under renovation to make room for more types of experiences. Read more

OMOTESANDO

Welcome to Harajuku! This high-speed, high-fashion, and high-traffic area of Tokyo is known for its clothing and design industry. And since February, 2019, those in the know step down the pink staircase into the Bean to Bar Lounge basement for mochas and much more. This small shop is very popular for its café and retail items, and there’s usually quite a crowd hungry not just to eat and drink, but to learn more about the diversity and origins of cocoa. And, its location next to the stylish Hay furniture shop has more people “discovering” us every day.

Food nerds, take notice: this is the only location in Japan serving our single-origin soft serve ice cream (from Zorzal Estate). And if you’re a fan of our café’s brownie bite flights, you’ll also want to know that this is the only place to find the macaron bite flight: three small macarons with three different single-origin chocolate creams inside. Read more

Dandelion Chocolate Japan, I cannot wait to visit! And, of course, to embark upon the Nippon hot chocolate tour (not possible…yet!). Anyway, I’ve learned a lot, and I thought that some of you might want to hear about it, too. Oh, and Tomo casually mentioned putting together a Japanese tour that takes guests from one Dandelion Chocolate location to another. If you think this sounds like a good idea, please let us know in the comments below. Thanks!

Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

May 17, 2019 by Karen Solomon

OK. So I am a fiend for nuts and chocolate of any kind, and when it comes to chocolate and hazelnuts, even more so. I remember the first time I ever tasted brand name Nutella: I was on a school trip to Epcot Center in Disneyworld sometime in middle school and I bought a small packet of it in the little French village. (I know, I know…the stuff is actually Italian, but you’ll have to talk to Walt about the reorg on European food.) It was SO GOOD. Like, really good. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even eat it on bread or anything; it’s quite possible I just squeezed the entire contents of it into my mouth, then went back and tried to squeeze out some more.

Fast forward to my college years and I became a Riot Grrl and completely engrossed in the DIY aesthetic of everything. I was making my own zines, cutting and duct taping my own clothes, and starting to make my own food (beyond instant Lipton Noodles & Sauce from a pouch). I began making my own condiments like ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise, and odd as it may sound, doing so felt like a very revolutionary act. I loved not being held to the confines of Kraft and ConAgra, and I loved the control that being in the kitchen and stocking my shelves gave me.

This passion and food lust led to a career as a food writer and cookbook author, and that afforded me the luxury of being able to make more food my own way. I would find a product at the store, look at all the junk on the ingredient label, and then take pride and pleasure in recreating that recipe in my own kitchen with real food. Nutella, known in Italy as gianduja, and known in North America as chocolate hazelnut spread, was eventually checked off my list.

When Bloom, the chocolate salon inside our 16th Street Factory, was doing its friends and family meals, I tasted Lisa’s bruleed brioche with her take on a homemade “Nutella”. It’s sublimely creamy and entirely decadent. And on the sticks of crisp, sweet, enriched bread, it’s an exercise in rich. For chocolate enthusiasts and anyone with a sweet tooth, it is exceptional.

In our book, Making Chocolate From Bean to S’more, Lisa and the kitchen team stuff this cream inside cookies, which seems like a dessert lover’s dessert. Meredyth was the first to think about making the chocolate hazelnut cream in a melanger, the stone-wheeled grinder that we use to make chocolate. I’m sure this is what gets our in-house version so super creamy; more so than most of us could accomplish at home.

For those of us who don’t own our own melanger, we still have options; a food processor will also do the job. I have a version of the recipe in one of my cookbooks, but lately I’ve been making it even more simply and delicious.

I weigh the hazelnuts, toast them, and remove the skin; this is essential, as the skin is really bitter. While the nuts are still warm, I put them into the food processor with an equal weight of our Chef’s Chocolate. I blend it thoroughly, then add some salt and about ¼ cup good-quality extra virgin olive oil. Then I blend it for a long, long time—five minutes, at least—until it’s super smooth and liquidy. Once it’s scraped into a jar and refrigerated, the texture firms and it becomes quite smooth and spreadable, particularly once it hits warm toast. Try it also spread onto fruit or simply eaten from a spoon :>.

For the real deal, though, follow our kitchen’s recipe below. Enjoy!

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

from Making Chocolate: Bean to Bar to S’more

Yield: About 2 cups

Ingredients:

1 cup / 140 grams / 5 ounces blanched hazelnuts
3/4 cup / 212 grams / 7 1/2 ounces melted 70% chocolate (Karen’s note: Chef’s Chocolate works great here)
1/2 cup / 100 grams / 3 1/2 ounces sugar
1/2 teaspoon / 2 grams kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F (176.7°C). Spread the hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown. Cool completely, then chop the nuts coarsely.

In a heavy-duty food processor, combine the hazelnuts, chocolate, sugar, and salt, blending them until completely smooth. The longer the mixture is processed, the smoother it will be; we recommend blending for at least 5 minutes on high speed. Enjoy on toast or waffles, or spread it on your favorite slices of fruit. The mixture can be stored in an airtight container or jar at room temperature for several weeks.

NOTE: At Dandelion, we make our version with a mini melanger. If you have one at home, simply add all the ingredients to the stone grinder, and let it grind for at least 30 minutes.

Chocolate 301: Our Trip to Belize in 2019

May 8, 2019 by The Dandelion Team

Rebecca and Renee wrote this blog post together, and they were fortunate enough to attend our annual guest trip to Belize that we offer each February (just one of the many perks in working for a chocolate company—in addition to all of the chocolate you care to eat). This trip is one of many that we’ve taken as a team: Greg visited in 2013, and Molly had a look a year later, but this is the first for Renee and Rebecca. Renee is a chocolate maker at our Valencia Street factory. Rebecca was formerly the manager of the Valencia Street café, but she just became the Director of the Chocolate Experiences team. Warning: their travelogue will make you want to pack your bags.

Hello Dandelion Friends! This February we had the opportunity to attend a Chocolate 301 cocoa trip: an interactive, hands-on, seven-day exploration into the world of cacao in the southern tip of Belize. Along with Greg, our Bean Sourcerer, and 11 chocolate aficionados from across North America, we stayed at the very scenic Chaab’il B’e Lodge in Punta Gorda. We ate amazing chocolate-infused meals and washed them down with local cacao rum and Coke prepared by lodge owners, Sheila and Rusty.

Diving right into the jungles of Belize, we spent our first day touring Eladio’s farm where we learned about the gospel of cacao, and the harmony between man and earth that helps synthesize healthy plant growth. As he led us through his farm, Eladio would stop to pick what appeared to be random plants and teach us about the benefits they have on the body, as well as how they contribute to the growth of the entire ecostructure. We ate hearts of palm, sugar cane, cacao, and corn right out of the ground! It was a wild jump into the deep end of Belize. He stopped to cut open a cacao pod and said, “now we look for faces.” As Eladio explained it, the faces that can be identified in the raw pod give us insight into all of the animals and creatures that love to eat them! I found Stitch. What faces do you see?

After our long trek through Eladio’s wild farm, we finished the day with a delicious, home-cooked Belizean meal and a lesson on making traditional Mayan drinking chocolate.

Another day, we went to Xibun Reserve, a former Hershey plantation of 1100 acres that has been revamped and is now growing cacao and citrus. It is HUGE. We spent a bumpy couple of hours riding through the orange groves and rows of cacao trees in the back of a tractor. We got to see firsthand as the farmers split the cacao pods and harvested the wet beans. It was mind-blowing to see how easily and quickly they got the pods open because they are so thick! We also hopped down from our iron chariot to walk around through the trees, enjoying the variety of colors that each pod produced. The trees were full of beautiful flowers and budding cacao pods. Seeing the difference in how the cacao trees were kept at Xibun and at Eladio’s was really interesting. Xibun had very well-kept, neat rows of trees that were in stark contrast to the wild jungle of Eladio’s farm. Even as we rode around the tractor at Xibun, one side was all cacao—and then we’d turn around and see all citrus. It was surreal.

On Valentine’s Day we went to Maya Mountain Fermentary. The name may sound familiar to some of you who may have tried our Maya Mountain, Belize chocolate bars—feel free to learn more about how Elman developed this bar’s flavor profile. Maya Mountain is an organization, not a co-op, from where we source our delicious Belizean beans. They collect wet beans from farmers around Belize and ferment the beans at their location in Punta Gorda. This experience took the term “hands on” to a whole new level! We got to actually stick our hands in the gooey fermentation boxes to see how much heat they produce! We also got to taste the beans at different stages of fermentation and drying. The flavor of the nibs changed significantly from one to four days of fermentation, as well as at different stages of drying. Truly in her element, Renee got right to work, showing the team how we sort beans and explaining what we look for in this process. We learned what their quality manager looks for when they sort before packaging and sending beans to the chocolate makers. She then showed us what she looks for when she grades beans. She could look at a cut test and see how far along fermentation had occurred. We then tasted a wide selection of chocolate made with Maya Mountain beans from other makers. As a chocolate maker, this is one of Renee’s favorite things to do. One origin can taste so vastly different depending on the maker, but there remains a consistent character from the terroir that is discernible in each bar from the same origin.

On our last day, we went to Copal Tree Lodge where we walked around their beautiful garden and made chocolate with their chocolate maker. It was amazing to learn about their process and see that one chocolate maker takes ownership of every step! He gave us beans to taste from different times in the roast. We could taste the flavors evolving. Then we got to winnow the freshly roasted beans. It was very therapeutic, like raking a zen garden. After this, the chocolate maker showed off his skills and hand-tempered a large batch of chocolate right in front of us for us to pour into molds. To remove air bubbles from the bars in our factory, we rely primarily on a vibrating table. At Copal Tree, they rely on the more rudimentary system of slamming the chocolate mold against a table to remove air bubbles—a very satisfying alternative. It was incredible to see such a large batch of chocolate hand-tempered with such ease. He didn’t even need a thermometer; he could just feel the change in viscosity and knew when it was ready!

This doesn’t even scratch the surface on what happened on the trip. There was so much more that can’t be captured with words or pictures. It was really refreshing to be around so many people who are passionate about chocolate; not just the customers, but also the farmers, fermenters, and other makers. It was so eye-opening to see how much goes into making a treat that the world enjoys. 10/10 would go back on this trip! Without question, it is worth every drop of bug repellant, sweat, and slathering of sunscreen!

To Belize with Love and Chocolate,

Renee and Rebecca

PS: Want to learn more about what life is like in Belize? Maya moved there to deepen her work in chocolate, and our friend Madeline shares her story of living there for several months.