Tag Archives: beans

Remy and the Chocolate Chip

June 18, 2020 by

For as long as chef Lisa Vega has been with Dandelion Chocolate, Maybe The Very Best Chocolate Chip Cookie has been part of our DNA. For years, our chocolate chips were made in-house by the kitchen team, who hand-piped over 50 pounds of tempered discs a week. That is, until recently, when the Large Chip was born.

To learn the “making of” story we spoke with Remy Labesque, a talented industrial designer and good friend of ours who collaborated with Chef Lisa and the production team to make the perfect chocolate chip. Remy met Todd when he attended a Chocolate 101 class some years ago and so began a lasting friendship. Remy was working at Frog Design at the time (he’s now at Tesla) and he jumped at the opportunity to re-design the chocolate chip.

When the large chip was launched in May, Remy walked us through his creative process which led to the birth of these geometric beauties.

“The chip project began about three years ago. If my memory serves me, it was driven in large part by pastry chef Lisa Vega, who wanted something specifically tailored for her recipes. There are two chip designs: large and small (the large was released first, and the small will be at a later date). Their mass (3.5 grams and 0.8 grams, respectively), was driven by Lisa, and the prototypes were tested along the way in her recipes as part of the R&D process. Another consideration was that we also needed something that could be enjoyed as a chocolate-eating experience completely by itself — that’s where our unique shape comes into play.

“The shape of a typical store-bought chocolate chip is an arbitrary result of the industrial manufacturing process used to make it. As you might expect, a drop of molten chocolate is deposited onto a flat surface and left to cool. Chocolate chip taste varies widely by brand, but the shape of the chips does not.

“The shape of our chip is faceted: The edges of a Dandelion Chocolate chip taper to thin-as-we could-make-’em without compromising structure. This is because the thermal mass of a thin piece of chocolate melts more quickly on the palate. So when you put a Dandelion chip on your tongue, the thin, chiseled edges warm-to-melt nearly instantly. The 3D shape, while simple, we believe is also novel. And this is noteworthy because the world of industrial design is running out of simple forms that haven’t been claimed for something already. Beyond that we’re proud to have optimized the chocolate chip eating experience as a result of rethinking the humble shape itself.”

While the chip was created for baking, many of us at Dandelion Chocolate have reached for them to nibble because the mouthfeel is different from our bars; but make no mistake, there is nothing like the taste when these chips are baked in a gigantic chocolate chip cookie.

The chips are being released by origin, and the first two are especially suited to baking and confections:
Costa Esmeraldas from Ecuador, 70%, 2018 Harvest, with notes of chocolate buttercream frosting and banana; and Hacienda Azul from Costa Rica, 70%, 2019 Harvest, with notes of chocolate almond biscotti and buttery caramel.

We want to thank Remy for bringing his know-how and love of chocolate to the project. It’s great to finally to be able to share his story with you.

Introducing Rio Caribe: The Trials and Tribulations of a First Time Batch Maker

September 10, 2012 by

It’s official, my first batch is complete and making its way into people’s mouths all over the country!

I could not be more excited as it was a long time coming.  This road began several months ago when I was in the process of becoming a full-fledged chocolate maker (I had been an apprentice chocolate maker until that point).  The last hurdle, after showing that I could complete all the steps of our process correctly and efficiently and passing a “background” chocolate knowledge exam, was to design a batch of my own.

Now I had been making chocolate for several months at this point, but I had followed prescribed processes that had been developed for each of our three origins at the time (Madagascar, Colombia, and Ocumare, Venezuela).  So I was given the option of ordering beans from a broker or using some of the beans that were already in storage.  I looked around at the beans on the market (and we already had samples many of them), but the pragmatist in me won out and I chose to use some organic Bolivian beans we already had on hand.

I launched into the first round of taste tests, excited at the prospect of my first batch.  I sat by the roaster eagerly awaiting the first crack, a common point of reference we use to start taste tests (when the first bean pops away from its husk). The trick is to wait for the first crack (or two) and then push the button on the roaster to start cooling the beans.  I pulled up my chair so my face was directly in front of the roaster, straining to hear over our roaster that elusive first crack.   I waited and waited and then I heard it, I got so excited I pressed the button starting the cooling cycle and then realized…I hadn’t looked at the time so the whole exercise of finding a reference point was lost.  So once I stopped blushing and feeling silly, I quickly prepped another kilo of beans and was at it again.  This time, it was a success.  To cover my bases I did a roast two minutes longer and another two minutes shorter.

In no time, all three 1 kilo batches were cracked, sorted, winnowed, ground and into the cocoatown (what we now call…mini) melangers.  A day later, they were ready to be cooled and tasted.  I excitedly brought them out at lunchtime for a group taste test.  We all tasted our pieces, prepared to be delighted by our newest taste test and it was AWFUL.  Poor Elaine, who was used to taste tests being fairly palatable, had a rather large chunk and I took one look at her face and told her it would be okay if she spit it out.  Really, it was terrible.

I kept at it.  Trying different roast profiles…a temperature spike at the beginning, a longer slower roast, and my colleagues were great sports and continued to taste the different test batches in all their glory.  Nothing was working.

Then, a giant order came in and my immediate production duties shelved batch development.  About a month went by and we were running out of Colombian beans, so all of the sudden, getting a new origin online was an urgent matter to avoid a bean crisis.  I was not feeling optimistic about the Bolivian beans filling the Colombian void, and then thankfully we had some newly arrived Venezuelan beans from the  Rio Caribe region by way of the Franceschi family.  I repeated the taste tests process and got excited when I was first cracking the beans and this amazing aroma was released.  The first round of taste tests were ALL delicious.  It was glorious compared to my previous attempts, and felt like such a luxury to pick the best from the really good.

We all agreed on a roast profile we liked and I got the go ahead to make a thirty kilo batch.  The batch tasted great and I was so excited to temper it.  But that wasn’t the end of the story, I put the chocolate in our temperamental temperer and it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the correct temperature to come out tempered before seizing (this is when cooled chocolate builds up in the pipes of the machines and simply stops coming out of the nozzle).  I tried for about 4 hours and only had 6 streaky bars to show for it.  I couldn’t stop thinking, what are we going to do as our supply of Colombian bars quickly dwindled.

I was bailed out by a new motor for the temperer.  It arrived just in the nick of time and was strong enough to pump that thick Rio Caribe through the pipes and into the molds at the correct temperature.  Thank goodness!

The Rio Caribe is just lovely–full of deep, dark chocolately richness and it just begs to be squished between graham crackers and a roasted marshmallow or smother a perfectly ripe strawberry.   It’s been well received at the Noe and Mission community farmers markets as well as around the factory.  One of our newest additions to the production crew, Joey, let it slip that this is his favorite origin yet.  Not to mention it got the stamp of approval from my Grammy.  So I could not be happier to share it will you all and hope you like it just as much as we do!

 

Cynthia giving me a chocolate high five!

Inspection Table Done

May 4, 2011 by

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!