Fossa Chocolate x Oasis:
As a team of individuals who strive to be as eco-friendly as we can, imagine our delight when our secret project with Oasis: was finally set in motion! Oasis: is a local vegan beauty brand with a focus on a low-to-zero-waste lifestyle that handcrafts its products daily using only high quality ingredients sourced from the best natural environments.
And guess what? Cocoa husks from our factory happen to be one of the ingredients used in our collaboration with Oasis:.
Chocolate makers around the world would know that cocoa husks are a byproduct of chocolate manufacturing. They are removed from cocoa nibs through the winnowing process and are often discarded. Each year, an estimated 700 hundred tonnes of cocoa husks are discarded globally. (Source: mdpi)
In our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, we embarked on a collaboration with Oasis: using our cocoa husk upcycled into a skincare product. Loaded with antioxidants, cocoa husks also have a fibrous texture and strong lingering aroma that makes for an excellent ingredient for beauty scrubs. With refreshing hints of coconut, lime and of course, our favourite cocoa, this scrub not only smells good but provides a luxurious cleanse for the scalp and body. As chocolate makers and lovers, this one is definitely right up our alley!
Say hello to this Head-to-Toe Magic Powder Wash, a vegan cocoa scrub that changes from powder to foam upon contact with water.
Made with 100% plant-based ingredients, this gentle daily powder wash will provide a smooth creamy lather to help lift off daily grime and leave your skin and hair smooth and silky.
The cocoa scrub is now available for purchase on both our website and Oasis: website and retail stores.
Chocolate for a Cause
It has been exactly a year since we last updated this space. 2021 has been such a ride so far and our team is grateful to be busy with new flavour creations and collaborations with like-minded partners. In this post, we will be casting a spotlight on one of our chocolate bars launched a while back in collaboration with Burung Indonesia.
The impact of traditional cocoa production
It might come as a surprise to many that mass-market commercial cocoa production has impacted the environment in multiple ways, mostly as a result of poverty-stricken farmers who engage in deforestation to create intensive cocoa plantations.
In a typical cocoa farm, the farming method often adopted is a monoculture - the cultivation of cacao trees exclusively on a piece of land. Production of one single crop on a plantation would eventually result in loss of soil nutrients, calling for deforestation to clear the way for more monoculture cacao. This repetitive cycle has seen its way through generations of cacao farmers as it allows them to maximise short-term profitability but at the detrimental expense of the environment.
Our commitment towards sustainable farming
In handcrafting every bar of chocolate, we place a strong emphasis on ensuring that the cacao beans are ethically sourced. One criterion we look out for is estates that engage in agroforestry as opposed to monocultures. This essentially means that the cacao trees are cultivated alongside other native trees and food crops, allowing wildlife to dwell in their natural habitat. The presence of a variety of species results in the formation of a self-sustaining mini-ecosystem, where the animal dung and cocoa waste, in turn, become organic fertilizer.
Three years ago, we crossed paths with a representative of Burung Indonesia at a local event and we were intrigued to learn of the great work they have been doing to overcome the seemingly never-ending cycle of monocultures and deforestation. Burung Indonesia, a partner of BirdLife International, works with smallholder farmers in Indonesia to produce high-quality cacao while protecting the environment where 1,777 species of birds dwell. By focusing on agroforestry, they were able to encourage agroecological restoration, where soil fertility is consistently rebuilt, hence improving agro-ecosystem functions that in turn reduce pests, diseases, and weed outbreaks. In the long run, this leads to more sustainable productivity for the farmers which is crucial for the local communities, while ensuring the preservation of the natural environment.
After learning about the organisation’s mandate and their painstaking conservation efforts, we were beyond excited to dedicate a bar to the cause.
A treat for all - from farm to customer
The farmers here at Makarti Jaya village in Sulawesi, Indonesia are making a difference in this new agroforestry scheme without harming the verdant Randangan forest through sustainable management of cocoa cultivation. Apart from the wildlife benefitting, the farmers are producing higher yields and fetching better prices for cacao beans which goes a long way in supporting their livelihoods.
This project is also taking a step towards gender equality by including a minimum of 10% of women in training activities. At present, women are involved in pod wrapping, harvesting, bean sorting, bean fermentation, and drying.
It came naturally to us, the name of this special bar - Burung, which stands for Bird in Bahasa Indonesia - in celebration of the birdlife in Sulawesi that was preserved from this program. Using cacao harvested from Makarti Jaya, the result is a delicious olive, tamarind, and raspberry character highlighted in the chocolate. Most importantly, it warms our hearts to know that the origins of these bars were able to benefit both birds and people.
Photos and Video Credits: Burung Indonesia
Fossa Chocolate x Ferne Atelier
Ferne Atelier is one of the leading clay jewellery makers in Singapore and what’s most amazing is that every single piece of their wearable beauties are hand designed and sculpted by their talented founder.
While our operations were affected over the past few months due to the pandemic, we’ve been working on a project with one of our favourite local artisans. Ferne Atelier is a leading clay jewellery maker in Singapore and what’s most amazing is that every single piece of their wearable beauties are hand designed and sculpted by their talented founder.
Since Ferne Atelier’s signature designs very much revolve around nature and its intricacy, we were really excited to team up for a series of earrings inspired by various parts of the cacao plant.
It started with this:
And soon it became this:
Design 1, Textured Leaves
The top piece resembles the texture of cacao leaves while the bottom piece is an assembly of cacao pods, leaves and flower.
Design 2, Seeds & Husk
Inspired by freshly opened cacao pods, the top piece resembles an cacao pod with its juicy pulp and seeds exposed. The bottom attached piece has cacao husk incorporated.
Design 3, Studs
A smaller pair of studs for everyday wear. Ideal for a more casual and minimalist look.
In addition to the visuals, we really hoped to incorporate some elements of real cacao into these pieces so we decided to work some dried, roasted cacao husks into the clay. Kudos to Ferne Atelier who managed to work them out so beautifully! ♥
They even took the effort to design the earring holders! It’s all in the details.
These limited edition earrings are truly special pieces — every pair is skillfully sculpted by hand and the beautiful workmanship shows. They are now available within a bundle in on the web store. Check them out before they’re gone!
Stay home activities during this circuit breaker period
Last week, the government announced stricter circuit breaker measures in an attempt to combat the rising COVID-19 cases. The mass closure of workplaces, schools, retail and entertainment outlets left many of us at a loss with too much time to spend at home for the coming month.
If you’re looking for ideas to occupy yourself, here’s a list of activities we’ve compiled to tide through this period:
Sew your own reusable mask
Cook a feast for your family with these recipes
Keep fit with these workouts you can do at home without any equipment
Pick up a new language via these online resources
Find a book to read here
Do a little to help local businesses stay afloat
Pamper your skin with these natural facial masks
Watch thematic videos for free
Keep your partner engaged with these LDR activities
Learn new skills here
On top of that, we will also be launching a series of #FossaChocolateCommunity challenges for the next four weekends to engage you and your friends at home. There will be giveaway prizes each week - it’s our way little way of saying thanks for your continued support through this difficult time. ♥
More details will be released on our challenge page this Friday (10 April 2020) at 8pm so mark your calendars and stay tuned!
A collaboration with Hong Kong specialty coffee roastery Urban Coffee Roasters
Hong Kong has always been nostalgic to me. Perhaps it's due to the countless HK dramas I grew up watching; maybe it's from the memories of revisiting my parents' honeymoon spots on family trips when I was a child; or it could just be my overwhelming love for dimsum and milk tea that created this special bond. Travelling to Hong Kong always felt like going home away from home - in so many ways the city was same same but different from Singapore.
With Hong Kong being a place that’s close to my heart, you can imagine how thrilled I was when we managed to land a trip there to expand our footprint! Everything happened pretty quickly, the trip was decided in April and we were to fly by early June.
By the time our air tickets were booked, my list of places to check out was already massive. But excitement aside, there was an important task ahead. Securing a trip was just tip of the iceberg, the real challenge was ensuring that a fruitful schedule was planned out and substantial outcomes were achieved from this time-off from Singapore. After many sleepless nights spent putting the plans together and through a series of hits and misses, we finally had a good itinerary ahead of us.
Among the many admirable entrepreneurs and inspirational business partners we met on the trip, a particular one struck a chord with me because of how similar their story was to ours. Urban Coffee Roasters is a specialty coffee roastery founded by Horry and Gary. The duo started out as friends and over time, bonded over their common interests - food, of course being one of those. In 2014, they turned that hobby into a business, starting off by serving coffee at pop-up markets before going full fledged into owning their own space. Check out their quaint little cafe at Tsim Sha Tsui!
While our trip lasted less than a week, conversations with the team continued and then THIS was born.
Image by Urban Coffee Roasters
This limited release Banko Gotiti coffee chocolate bar we created in collaboration with Urban Coffee Roasters is made with a micro-lot coffee selected by Gary from Ethiopia Yirgacheffe in 2019 harvest season paired with our cacao beans from Rehoboth Estate in the Philippines. With this combination of coffee and cacao, you can expect floral notes with immense blueberry sweetness and a delicate tangerine finish. This bar will be sold exclusively at Urban Coffee Roasters (though we kept a bar for our own secret stash ha!) and since we’ve made a micro-lot, it is available in limited quantities only.
While we won’t be back in Hong Kong for a while, we’re happy to have found new friends and caught up with old ones during this trip. And to those who believe in us, thank you for your support and we really look forward to growing together in the coming years.
Till we meet again, Hong Kong!
Nanyang Kaya - Breakfast in a Chocolate Bar
Walk around Singapore’s kopitiam in the morning and you’d likely see people munching on kaya toasts and dipping them in soft-boiled eggs while sipping hot kopi. It’s the quintessential Singaporean breakfast. For those unfamiliar with kaya, it is a highly addictive coconut and egg jam that is slowly cooked with palm sugar and aromatic pandan leaves. Every store has their own secret recipe but it’s always delicious when smeared on a nicely toasted traditional white bread. The light crunch as you bite into it, followed by the toasty flavour mixed with the aromatic kaya will wake you up nicely every morning.
Our take on this well-loved dish is a milk chocolate made with Rehoboth Estate cacao, pandan leaves, coconut oil and toasted bread. We have a love-hate relationship with pandan leaf. It’s one of those ingredients which has to be used in moderation because of its strong unique perfume. Too much can kill your appetite, too little and the chocolate will struggle to feel like a kaya bar. It took us a while to find the perfect pandan for this bar, and then an even longer time to get the right balance.
We chose cacao from Rehoboth Estate for its nutty and savory character that reminds us of toasted bread and soy sauce - perfect in a breakfast bar. Finally, to complete the experience, we toasted up some lovely naturally leavened bread baked by our neighbour (there’s a bakery on the fourth floor of our building) and put them into the chocolate to recreate the crunch in the kaya toast.
Hope you enjoy this bar! We had lots of fun developing it.
Coffee Chocolate - Tiong Hoe Specialty
Coffee chocolate is one of my favourite bars to make. As an coffee enthusiast, working on the coffee chocolate series has been a real joy. It’s a great excuse to taste many great coffees and I’m intrigued by the diverse range of flavours each coffee and chocolate pairings bring. In our countless trial batches, we found that some pairings don’t quite work together, producing flavours that kill off the favourable characters in the coffee. But when we have the right pairing, wonderful flavours such as blueberries, roasted hazelnuts and red dates can come to life. Pairing possibilities are endless. In our latest coffee chocolate, we have collaborated with one of Singapore’s pioneer coffee roastery to bring you a very special chocolate.
Walking into Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee is like visiting a coffee museum. Lots of coffee and coffee equipment, new and old on display.
If you live around the Queenstown area in Singapore, you’d probably have heard of Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee. Founded as Tiong Hoe Gim Kee Trading Co by the legendary coffee expert, Mr. Tan Tiong Hoe in the 1960s, this family-owned business is now managed by the second generation, continuing the pursuit of roasting and serving great specialty coffee.
The coffee we’ve chosen this time is Ethiopia Yirgacheffe from the Worka Wuri washing station, developed by the 2016 World Barista Champion, Berg Wu. It’s a natural processed heirloom varietal grown at an elevation of 2040masl. Tiong Hoe’s roast accentuated it’s blueberries, strawberries, peach, grapes, honey and roselle character. Blended with our new Burung cacao (look out for its release next week!), the flavour transforms into a very pleasant notes of wildflower honey, blueberries and hazelnut.
This is a very different chocolate from the previous four coffee chocolates developed with our friends at Homeground Coffee Roasters, and we like that you can taste the coffee roasters’ unique styles in these chocolates. Hope you enjoy it!
These delicious bars will be available at next weekend’s Boutiques Fair (29-31 March 2019) and at selected retail stores in Singapore.
Debut: Chocolate Tasting Club
As chocolate makers, we consume lots of chocolate everyday. In our pursuit of creating fine flavours, we go through numerous rounds of R&D for each new product that we launch, making tweaks to the roast profile and recipe. We then conduct blind taste tests and continually refine the flavours till they are on point.
When it's finally down to actual production, we taste the chocolate after a few days of conching to ensure that the texture is satisfactory before harvesting for the next step. When we mould the bars, we taste to ensure that the final product is consistent with the tasting notes we present.
Beyond our own range, we also enjoy tasting chocolates by makers from around the world as a benchmark and source of inspiration for our palettes. Over time, we've accumulated a treasure trove of chocolates from our adventures around the world - many of which can’t be found in Singapore or even Asia.
With the launch of our Chocolate Tasting Club, we aim to educate, engage and enrich our community with knowledge about cacao and chocolate. Through a series of tasting and discussion sessions, we will be unveiling our stash of chocolates thematically and experiencing how the techniques adopted by different chocolate makers impact the final flavour and texture of the bars.
This April, we are so thrilled to debut our first meet up with some new bars on hand! In this upcoming session, we will be tasting through a variety of dark chocolates made with Bolivian cacao as well as a series of very special breakfast-inspired chocolate flavours.
Check out our event page here for more details!
Heading to USA
We thought that the months leading up to Christmas were busy enough but January was crazy. We began the new year fulfilling the long list of December back orders (phew!). And then there was Carrie’s Keepers event in early Jan, which was a blast with the flavour war raging between die-hard Salted Egg Cereal fans vs Pistachio Rose Cranberry lovers.
Amidst the flurry of conversations and slurps of coffee right after the event, we found ourselves headed for the US on a flight longer than the amount of sleep each of us had that week. It should have been a long restful flight but HOW CAN I SAY NO TO AMAZING THRILLERS AIRING IN-FLIGHT?? For those of you who like some adrenaline-pumping drama, check out this and this which I thought were pretty good.
And then after many meals and naps onboard, we finally arrived in San Francisco all ready to meet our friends and retailers at the Winter Fancy Food Show.
It was a busy but fulfilling event and it was good that we could finally put faces to the names we’ve been talking to for months online. Thanks to everyone’s support, we’re happy to share that we are now in 28 states (69 cities) in the US! But of course we won’t stop growing from here.
To our friends and readers in the States, don’t worry if we’re currently not present where you are. Please please reach out to us at hello@fossachocolate.com or via Instagram or Facebook if you have any retailers you’d like us to approach for stocking and we’ll do our best to find our way to you!
In the meantime, here are some travel photos to enjoy. :)
Recipe: Lychee Rose Saint Honoré
Here’s our go-to recipe for a relatively quick and easy pastry that can feed and impress large groups at a potluck party. Try it out this Christmas and let us know what you think!
It’s Christmas season, the time for get-togethers with friends and families. For us, it’s the busiest period where months of preparation didn’t seem to help ease production and fulfillment crunch. Nonetheless the celebrations must go on and we try to attend year-end parties whenever we can.
Here’s my go-to recipe for a relatively quick and easy pastry that can feed and impress large groups at a potluck party. Try it out this Christmas and let us know what you think!
Lychee Rose Saint Honoré
Craquelin
85g unsalted butter, soften at room temperature
100g flour
100g sugar
Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment.
Add in flour and beat till combined.
Add food coloring to desired color.
Roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper to 2mm thickness and freeze.
Choux pastry
125g whole milk
125g water
110g unsalted butter
3g salt
165g flour, sifted
240g eggs
In a medium pot, add in milk, water, butter and salt.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Remove pot from the heat, add in all the flour at once and stir quickly.
Return to heat again till a thin coating form on the bottom of the pot.
Transfer to mixing bowl fitted with paddle attachment and beat at medium speed to cool the mixture down.
Gradually add in eggs, one at a time till fully incorporated.
Transfer to piping bag.
Choux pastry + Craquelin
Use an open star piping tip to pipe the choux pastry into 1.5-2cm diameter.
Place cut frozen craquelin (of the same size) on top of the choux pastry.
Spray the baking tray with water. Bake for 10mins at 200C and turn down to 180C for another 8mins.
Rose Chantilly Cream
250g cream
35g sugar
1 tsp rosewater
Place all ingredients in a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment.
Whisk till soft peak.
Lychee Ganache Montée (whipped ganache)
100g Fossa White Chocolate
50g + 150g Cream
1 Can of lychee, drained and diced
Heat 50g of cream and add to white chocolate.
Whisk till mixture is smooth and well combined.
Cool the mixture down in the fridge till semi-thick.
Transfer to mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment. Add in 150g of cream and whipped till firm.
Fold in chopped Lychee.
Assembly
Fill the choux pastry with Lychee Ganache Montée.
Place three choux on a 6cm sable (butter cookie) and decorate with Rose Chantilly cream .
Fossa Chocolate x Drea Chong
Here's a secret little project we've been working on over the past few months with Drea Chong, thoughtfully put together based on the DC community's spirit of fashion, beauty and class.
December. It's the time of the year again when you finally have a good reason to go on endless shopping trips and spend hours scrolling those webstores. Holiday gift buying can be fun but when you don't find that perfect present after days of browsing, it all ends up with a 30 minute frenzy at the store followed by an episode of flying wrapping paper and ribbons at home just before your party.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
Here's a secret little project we've been working on over the past few months with Drea Chong to launch the very special #DCHoliday collection, inspired by her constant struggle to find unique and meaningful gifts. This bar was thoughtfully put together with design and flavour concocted based on the DC community's spirit of fashion, beauty and class.
Cereal Malt - a customised flavour that represents the team's favourite morning snack.
Check out the classy botanical motifs, neutral hues and feminine elements, elegantly designed by Soleil Ignacio from the Philippines!
Read more about Drea's collection here or drop us a note if you’d like to customise your own chocolates too.
Photo credits: Drea Chong
Sea Salt Dark Chocolate
It's amazing how salt brings out lots of inherent flavours from food. Even in beer brewing, a touch of salt makes the beer taste sweeter and "rounder".
It's amazing how salt brings out lots of inherent flavours from food. Even in beer brewing, a touch of salt makes the beer taste sweeter and "rounder". Hence we're here today with our very own sea salt chocolate.
Salt musks certain flavours and highlights others. We went through some rigorous sessions, tasting through all our single origin dark chocolates with salt. Some didn't go so well, with the salt highlighting the astringence and bitterness - like in our PISA 68% chocolate, and the acidity in our Lachua 70% chocolate. But in other chocolates, the salt brought out sweetness and nutty flavours like in our Alto Beni 70% and Pak Eddy 70%.
If you haven't tried chocolate with salt, do give them a try!
Shrimp & Bonito
We had so much great sea food during our short (food) trip to Tokyo, Japan in March earlier this year that we had a slight withdrawal after we came back home. The terrible urge to eat seafood eventually manifested into this chocolate bar.
We had so much great sea food during our short (food) trip to Tokyo, Japan in March earlier this year that we had a slight withdrawal after we came back home. The terrible urge to eat seafood eventually manifested into this chocolate bar - the Shrimp & Bonito chocolate bar.
Full of the flavours of the sea, that shrimp aroma reminded us so much of the fishery port, and the bonito furikake usually sprinkled over rice brought forth a special umami that goes so well with one of our dark chocolate. This unique combination may seem weird at first but it grows on you. Try it out and let us know what you think!
Sake Kasu
Few months ago, Taichi from Sakemaru asked whether I could make chocolate with sake kasu. I immediately said YES because this is one of my dream ingredients. I can smell it all day.
Few months ago, Taichi from Sakemaru (a sake subscription service – check them out) asked whether I could make chocolate with sake kasu. I immediately said YES because this is one of my dream ingredients. I can smell it all day.
Sake kasu, also known as sake lees, are the leftover rice from brewing sake. It has recently gained popularity as an ingredient due to its abundance of nutrients and incredible flavor. Some hardcore sake fans simply bake them with salt to make a chewy side dish. If you manage to get your hands on some, definitely try this out. It’s delicious!
Sake kasu is soft and mushy. It smells like sake.
The sake kasu we got were produced in the process of brewing Daiginjo, which is the highest grade of sake brewed by Asahara Shuzo Brewery, a family brewery located in Saitama Prefecture. To make them into chocolate, we dehydrated the sake kasu for a few hours over low heat to remove moisture and alcohol. The result is a chewy “jerky” that has all the flavors of sake without the alcohol so it’s suitable for people on alcohol-free diet. This kasu “jerky” is then combined with our house-made white chocolate and some sea salt flakes to round off the flavor.
Dehydrated sake kasu is still sticky.
Talking about white chocolate, this bar would be the first and probably only batch of white chocolate we will make with natural undeodorised cacao butter sourced from Peru. We managed to get our hands on a few kg of these special cacao butter and it's all going into this batch. This is easily one of my favorite bar now. Only 250 bars were made so do grab them fast before they run out!
Homeground Coffee Roasters x Fossa Chocolate
We first met the Homeground Coffee Roasters (HGCR) team at their cafe takeover at The Glasshouse when they presented two special coffee co-roasted with Hoshikawa Cafe from Japan. The packaging artwork (by Mike, check out his IG: herabot) got our attention, the coffee presentation and sharing by Ely made us understand the thought process behind the cup, and the coffee was so delicious we decided we need to work with them.
Fast forward two months later, we developed two coffee chocolate bars, just in time for Christmas. Instead of going with the typical tried and tested dark-roasted espresso coffee-chocolate blend, we decided to present them lightly-roasted for filter brews. We also wanted to showcase the drastically different flavour profile brought forth by various post-harvesting methods - natural processed and wash processed.
Natural processed coffee are coffee cherries that were left to dry in the sun with its pulp on, allowing fermentation to start spontaneously as the yeast feast on the sugary pulp. This process develops a certain sweet ripen fruit character in the coffee which paired really well with the wine-like flavour of our Rehoboth Estate cacao from the Philippines.
Wash processed coffee on the other hand, have a cleaner flavour profile as the coffee cherries were pulped and washed before drying, eliminating the fermentation process. Our nutty Oko Caribe cacao highlighted the floral notes of the coffee.
Both chocolates had distinctive flavours and we found that everyone have their favourites. If you managed to get your hands on these limited release bars, do let us know your thoughts!
Chocolate Bonbons
First blog update in three months! Time really flies when you don’t notice it. Today I want to write about the chocolate bonbons we have been creating in our little workshop. These are bite-sized pieces of chocolate confectionary that come in a wide range of forms, appearances and flavors. We love them for a few reasons.
Firstly, they are tedious to make and that gives us something interesting to distract ourselves from our daily ritual of chocolate making. There are many subtle yet critical factors that contribute to the taste, texture and appearance of a bonbon and even the slightest error means we have to throw out the batch and start over. It is not for the faint-hearted but the satisfaction is great!
Chocolate bonbons also allow us to introduce flavor combinations that wouldn’t be possible in a chocolate bar. Usually these are ingredients that can’t be dried sufficiently without losing the flavors that made them great. We are also able to introduce different textures—soft, crunchy, chewy, flowy—within the same bonbon. A journey within a single bite!
We will try to introduce new flavours every month or two. Here are the bonbons we introduced in the last two months.
May- Mother’s Day Collection
Earl Grey Haiti Dark Chocolate Ganache with Salted Caramel
Homemade Raspberry Jam with Coconut Ganache
June – Fathers’ Day Collection
Ardbeg Peated Whisky Caramel with Bolivia Dark Chocolate Ganache
Homemade Orange Jam, Shortbread, Rosemary Bolivia Dark Chocolate Ganache
Introducing Our Range
It is with great pleasure to announce that we’ve finally launched our Fossa Chocolate product range for sale. We chose to use this name because it really resonates with what we envision the company to be—working with and presenting wild flavors (Fossa, the animal’s scientific name is C. ferox which means wild).
During our one-year lull time doing back end R&D work, we visited cacao plantations, conducted countless experiments with various cacao and recipes, and slowly built and refined our chocolate making equipment to dial in the flavor profiles we wanted. Our current system has its limitations but the final piece of equipment (at least for this year) will be arriving this weekend so I’m really psyched to start making some even better chocolate with it.
We will be making generally three types of chocolates.
The single origin dark chocolate range will be our core product, showcasing the unique unadulterated flavors of the cacao we have sourced. Each of these cacaos will be selected for their wide spectrum of flavors. We try not to have cacaos with similar flavor profile in our portfolio at any one point in time so that we can manage our limited warehousing space better and keep our production schedule in check.
The inclusion range will see some interesting toppings that we feel complement the various single origin chocolates. For example, one of the ex-tenants of our shared factory space brings in some really amazing sun-dried mulberries. We have plans to use that with one of our fruitier chocolate.
Finally, to make things more interesting (for us as much as for you), we will also have a special limited edition range that pushes boundaries. So far we have a salted egg yolk cereal with caramelized white chocolate and an Uji Matcha chocolate available. More flavors are in the work. We will be releasing them in the coming months so please revisit our website or sign up to our mailing list!
These three types of chocolate should be enough to cover all grounds for now. If you haven’t already tried our current range, go ahead and order them on our webstore. Delivery to any location in Singapore is S$10. If you’d like to have them shipped overseas, just send us an email and we’ll fetch you a shipping quote from trusty DHL.
Cacao Nibs Chocolate Cookies
The first box of cookies just found its way into the office of a really generous customer. Her colleagues must be really lucky because I heard she is sharing! These hearty cookies make great fuels to start the day. Those extra cacao nibs are full of stimulating theobromine and antioxidants after all.
In my last post, I promised to go deeper into these amazing cookies so here it is. While brainstorming for vehicles to bring forth the unique flavours of our small batch chocolates, I recall chancing upon on Instagram a certain bakery that sold mouth watering cookies. Yup, that's right. Cookies lovers would immediately know who I'm referring to—the famous Levain Bakery from New York City that attracts snaking queue everyday with its inch-thick soft baked cookies.
A quick search on Google brought up Broma Bakery's Copycat Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies in the top search result. Those cookies look really delicious, so I had to give Sarah's recipe a try. I first tried making them following the recipe to the letter, except I switched out Ghirardelli's chocolate with some Sambirano 70% which I happened to have in the factory. The result was pretty good! Sambirano gave the cookies a fruity twang that was very refreshing, almost like a raspberry jam cookie. However, the texture left a bit more to be desired.
I ended up spending two full days in the factory doing trials, approaching it by tweaking one factor at a time with careful note taking. My homebrewing background helped because it trained me to run experiments to understand how each factors affect the beer. Some of the experiments I ran for the cookies included the bake time, temperature, dough size, amount of chocolate (which is a lot), sugar and butter.
Bake time: Longer bake time at low temperature will ensure the cookies are cooked, while ensuring the chocolate doesn't get burnt. I turn the heat up in the final few minutes in order to give the outer layer a nice crisp.
Dough size: I experimented with 35g, 40g, 45g, 50g, 60g, 70g, 80g and 90g. Generally, bigger the better as the dough gives the chocolate sufficient protection from heat during the bake.
Sugar type: The darker sugar affects texture and colour. Generally, darker sugar makes darker cookies, and higher proportion of dark sugar makes stickier cookies.
Butter: Get the best butter you can find that doesn't break the bank. Ensure it is stored well and never use rancid butter.
Ultimately, the takeaway is to understand the equipment and use the highest quality ingredients available. In my case, I also happen to have chocolate which I'm proud of, and the flavours really showed in the final product.
You'll find that in the cookies, I added a whole lot of chocolate—much more than what you'll find in typical cookies. I figured that the whole point of the cookies is the chocolate, so why skimp on the chocolate?
For some added crunch and even more intense chocolate flavour, I roasted up a bunch of cacao beans, winnowed and sprinkled the nibs on the cookie. That added another layer of complexity to the cookie. Nothing beats the robust aroma from a freshly roasted batch of cacao nibs. Each time you bite into a cacao nib, the flavour simply explodes in the mouth. It's a lovely experience. Cacao nibs is a topic I'll save for another post.
For now, have a go at making your own cookies! Here's a recipe you can try.
Adapted from Broma Bakery's Recipe.
INGREDIENTS
430g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoons salt
1 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
190g light or dark brown sugar (adjust for colour)
110g granulated sugar
2 eggs, cold, lightly beaten in a separate bowl
350g dark chocolate chunks
24 roasted and shelled cacao beans (more if you like)
INSTRUCTIONS
In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, powder, and salt.
In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter. Add in the sugars and beat until the sugar integrates with the butter. Mix in the eggs and continue mixing. Gradually add in the flour mixture, beating until a little flour remains. Don't overbeat as gluten will form. Fold in the chocolate chunks with a rubber spatula.
Divide the dough into 90g pieces. Shape the dough into desired shapes and sprinkle roasted cacao nibs over, pressing in to prevent them from dropping. Place on the baking sheet and refrigerate for overnight. It is important to allow the enzymes time to break down the starch in order to encourage caramelization during baking.
Preheat oven to 180°C. Bake cookies for 15-20 minutes, until light golden brown. You may take a few tries to get this right. Every oven is different.
Camino Verde and Cacao Fermentation
Fermentation—the word that gets me ever so excited as a home brewer. When I first found out that fermentation is an integral part of the chocolate making process, I was stroked. There are so much commonalities between chocolate making and beer brewing! The geek in me is really exploding.
In beer brewing, we worship the yeast Gods because fermentation is the key to flavour development. Different yeast strains, recipes and temperature profiles can have profound impact on the final product. There are many ways to approach fermentation and a lot depends on experience and personal preference. It is both Science and Art—just like chocolate making.
Fermentation in chocolate making is done at the cacao source, usually at the farm or collection center where freshly extracted pulp and seeds are gathered and fermented using various techniques. A while back, Pearl (www.courierchocolate.com), a chocolate maker from Dandelion Chocolate, wrote about her visit to Camino Verde estate in Balao, Ecuador. There, the estate owner, Vincente Norero, carries out very interesting cacao fermentation through purposeful temperature control, a calculated mixture of different Nacional pods grown on the farm, as well as a unique microbial cocktail inoculum to coax out specific flavours from the cacao beans. Vincente is so successful at this that his cacao has consistently placed in the "Best 50 Cocoa of Excellence Programme" by the International Cocoa Awards.
Naturally, I had to get hold of some of these fabulous cacao beans. Samples of two different types of cacao arrived a few weeks later, looking plump and nice. These beans are slightly more moist than usual due to the rainy season in Balao. However, as long as they are properly packed, it shouldn't be an issue.
Test batches with type A reveal strong floral notes and subtle nuttiness, hallmark of Nacional beans with Criollo influences. The Nacional hybrid, EET103, plays a predominant role in the floral flavors and accounts for 80% of the genetics used to create type A. Approximately 15% of the mixture accounts for red Trinitario pods and 5% are the highly acidic Venezolano pods. These cacao are kept at a lower temperature and fermented longer than other varieties.
Type B consists of 10% more Venezolano pods which contain significantly more natural acidity. It is also fermented at a higher temp for a shorter period of time. I would say that type B is a better chocolate for eating on its own due to the mild acidity and fruitiness. However, the chocolate was too viscous to work with due to the lower fat content. Tempering and moulding quickly became a nightmare.
In order to get the best of both worlds, I did a blend of both beans roasted with different temperature curves. The result is a floral and slightly fruity chocolate that is low in bitterness even at 75% cacao. The bitterness only reveals itself at the end of the melt, making this chocolate a perfect match with tea.
Balao 75% will be available soon in our new 35g tablet format. Keep a look out for it!
Russian Imperial Stout with Cacao Nibs
Friends who knows me personally would know that I used to be an avid homebrewer. Alas, with chocolate making in full swing these days, there simply isn't time for beer brewing anymore! Thoughts of using cacao nibs in a beer kept surfacing whenever I roast up a batch of aromatic cacao. If cacao nibs can be used to brew tea to great results, why not steep it in a beer during secondary fermentation? I can already imagine the complex flavours it can impart to a roasty porter or even a mildly fruity English brown ale.
Well, lucky for me, a great friend of mine happens to be looking for ingredients to give his (already super delicious) Russian Imperial Stout a boost. John from Brewlander is one of the best homebrewers in Singapore, having won multiple awards in our local homebrewing competition. Last year, his RIS got a whole snaking queue really excited. This year, he is looking for a special ingredient to up the game even further. So here we are! Cacao nibs.
We tried a few infusions with the beer sample he brought over. The Tumbes cacao has a very nice roasted almond and biscuity aroma when given a medium roast. In a lighter roast, we found bright cherry notes. Blend them together, and you get the best of both worlds. That's exactly what we did. Finishing with a touch of fruity Sambirano Valley cacao, the RIS sample ended up with a nice fruity-tart character along with a subtle nutty and chocolaty note in the finish. All these showed up in just a few minutes steep! We are really excited to see how the flavours will show up in the actual steep and develop in a few months' time. Only time will tell. Good RIS, like chocolate, is made of good quality ingredients, techniques and TIME.
John wrote a post on this collaboration in his blog. Geeky homebrewers out there, this is worth a read if you are considering adding cacao nibs to your beer.
