From The Blog

A Visit to ÓBOLO Chocolate in Santiago, Chile

October 10, 2018 by Ryan O'Connell

Ryan is a chocolate maker at our 16th Street factory, as well as a frequent traveler and motorcycle enthusiast. Inspired by the Chilean kung fu film Kiltro, he bought a motorcycle to ride to the Atacama desert of northern Chile, ultimately crossing into Argentina to catch the final stages of the world-famous Dakar Rally. While in Santiago, Chile, he had to visit our friends at ÓBOLO Chocolate to taste their amazing 70% Cacao con Nibs bar. This is what he found.

In January of 2018, while in Chile, I had the opportunity to stop by ÓBOLO Chocolate in Santiago’s Barrio Italia neighborhood. This mainly residential area of Santiago, although not as busy as other areas, has a decent level of foot traffic with plenty of cafes, restaurants, shops, and small factories peppered throughout the area. ÓBOLO, located on Avenida Italia, is rather unassuming from the outside; I missed it the first time I passed by. The color of the chocolate brown building foreshadows what can be found inside. Established in 2014, ÓBOLO is Chile’s first bean-to-bar chocolate maker. ÓBOLO makes two-ingredient chocolate bars as well as flavor-infused, dark milk, and inclusion bars.

Walking in, as would be expected, the aroma of chocolate hits you immediately. To the right, bags of Peruvian (Pangoa) cocoa beans. To the left, a product display table with cocoa beans and cocoa powder. Straight ahead, a display case with various chocolate bars and treats like chocolate-dipped candied ginger.

The People

The company has just five employees. Chances are you will be greeted by the owner and founder of ÓBOLO, Mark Gerrits (an expatriate from the United States). Mark was introduced to cacao back in 2001 while living in Ecuador’s Amazon region working with direct trade practices and cocoa producing communities. If Mark is busy in the back, you’ll probably meet one of the other team members – Geraldine Mondaca (a Santiago native and ÓBOLO´s uber-friendly store manager) or Gabriel Marques (the Head Chocolate Maker from Venezuela).

The Equipment

The production equipment at ÓBOLO is robust and pretty standard for a chocolate maker of its size, and also an amazing display of homemade tools that get the job done. They’re roasting cocoa beans with a modified homemade 10kg nut roaster. For a winnower (the machine that removes the cracked papery husk from roasted cocoa beans), they use a machine that was designed and built for them in Perú. They also use a 100lb Diamond grinder to make their chocolate, and their tempering machine was a familiar site. Just like us, they use a Unica machine to temper the chocolate at the right temperature to make a finished bar snappy and shiny. (Here’s more info on how chocolate is made.)

The Challenges

After speaking with the team, they mentioned that the winnowing process was bulletproof. It was also interesting to learn about the biggest challenges in their production. Like any chocolate maker, consistency in tempering is an issue. Some finished bars just look richer, darker, and shinier than others; the root is usually an imbalance in the quality or quantity of ideal crystals. Developing the flavor profile of each harvest year to year is also tricky. The roast and conch of each new batch of beans (the part of production that contributes to flavor development and mouthfeel) can be challenging to get right. Daily and weekly production and logistics flow is also tough for a small maker who is trying to be conscientious of their product. The planning, documenting, and traceability of each bar is something that ÓBOLO works at with gusto.

It can be easy to take for granted how much energy, passion, care, teamwork, and coordination go into making great chocolate at any scale, and I learned a lot by watching a small craft maker. It’s amazing to see how far the bean-to-bar New American Chocolate Movement revolution has reached, and I can’t wait to visit again.

Los Angeles Pop-Up Debut with Salt & Straw Ice Cream

August 31, 2018 by Jennifer Roy

When Salt & Straw ice cream invited Dandelion Chocolate to be the pop-up shop in their Los Angeles-based Arts District DTLA scoop shop (829 E. 3rd St.), we were thrilled and jumped at the opportunity. We could not think of a better way to introduce ourselves to the LA community than inside our favorite ice cream maker’s store.

Our pop-up shop inside Salt & Straw’s Arts District DTLA scoop shop.

In 2017, Dandelion Chocolate’s Executive Pastry Chef Lisa Vega taught a class with Salt & Straw’s co-founder Tyler Malek at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa. Lisa made her chocolate “Nutella” celebration cake and Tyler made nib-infused ice-cream. Soon after, Tyler and the Dandelion kitchen team collaborated to create the Smoked S’more ice cream flavor for their limited edition chocolate menu. Since then, all of Salt & Straw’s San Francisco scoop shops have served a rotating flavor that includes Dandelion Chocolate. A friendship made in chocolate ice cream heaven!

Tyler, Lisa, Meredyth of Dandelion Chocolate and Salt & Straw

Tyler of Salt & Straw, Lisa and Meredyth of Dandelion

In the LA pop-up shop, we will be offering a curated selection of our bars, hot chocolate mix, cocoa nibs, and ground chocolate, as well as our book, Making Chocolate: From Bean to Bar to S’more. And, of course, visitors will be able to taste samples of our chocolate. Norah, one of our long-time employees who now lives in Los Angeles, helped bring the pop-up to life, and we are so grateful for all of her hard work!

The pop-up will run through February 2019 during regular store hours, 11am to 11pm daily. Please stop by and say hello!

Cookies for a Cause: DOUGH & CO and Dandelion

August 10, 2018 by Omar Mamoon

Since 2013, Omar has been running DOUGH & CO, a San Francisco-based purveyor of cookie dough meant to be eaten baked or unbaked (eggs are substituted for a slurry of white chia seeds). All proceeds from this collaborative cookie project will benefit La Cocina, a non-profit food business incubator for women and people of color where he’s been a long time volunteer. We are excited to have him write about the philanthropic side of his local business.

I started DOUGH & CO five-and-a-half years ago. Though I never went to culinary school or business school, I had a strong innate passion for food. This passion was further fueled by the non-profit La Cocina.

La Cocina helps primarily low-income immigrant women of color to start food businesses; I lived across the street, so I started volunteering. Seeing people go through the program was super inspiring. I quit my desk job and started renting commercial kitchen space from them on Sundays where I’d make small batches of cookie dough.

From day one of starting DOUGH & CO, I knew that I wanted to give back to the community somehow. Part of the company mission statement is to “doughnate” 1% of our profits, 1% of our time, and 1% of our delicious cookie dough to nonprofits and causes that are important to us. Since starting my business, I’ve helped raise and donate over $25,000 to various non-profits around the Bay Area through cookie dough collaborations with like-minded folks. It’s not a lot in the grand scheme of it all, but it’s something – and that something can make a difference.

I’m stoked and honored to collaborate with Dandelion, who generously provided their 70% Camino Verde Chef’s Chocolate (which I mixed in generously with a batch of my peanut butter cookie dough). It’s like eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, except in a sophisticated cookie form. All proceeds from the sales of this cookie will benefit La Cocina.

The Dandelion/DOUGH & CO chocolate peanut butter cookie will only be available at the Dandelion Ferry Building cafe. And, it’s only around for a limited time – August 10-17, 2018.

I really like it, and I hope you do, too.

-xx

Omar

An Interesting Read on Brazilian Cacao

August 1, 2018 by Greg

While we don’t normally repost stories onto our blog, I thought it was worth calling this one out. One might say Brazil keeps crossing our path. Dandelion has been interested in working with cacao from Brazil for many years. Our sugar comes from Brazil and we’d be excited to have a bar where all of the ingredients are from Brazil.

Tuta, Greg, and Juliana at Vale Potomuju

A few years ago we had the pleasure of hosting Sarah Hartman, the Brazilian Chocolate Maker of Harper Macaw, for the summer. One of our previous Chocolate Makers, Arcelia Gallardo, eventually moved to Brazil and started Mission Chocolate, making some of the tastiest Brazilian bars I’ve had. So much Brazil! I’ve met many interesting and talented people in Brazil and after visiting Brazil this past May, I am quite optimistic about the bean-to-bar industry there. Many producers are also making chocolate from their own beans, creating a tight feedback loop to help improve quality and flavor.

The reason I wanted to highlight this piece in particular is because it does a great job of explaining a very complex and challenging topic – the devastation of the Brazilian Cacao industry – as well as highlighting Juliana and Tuta, two cacao producers in Brazil who have been doing an incredible job rehabilitating their farm (which I was able to visit in May) as well as producing tasty chocolate. With all of that being said, I hope you enjoy the read: https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/27/bioterrorism-in-bahia-witches-broom-chocolate/

New and Decadent in the SF Valencia Cafe: Camino Verde Coffee Cake, Chocolate Ganache Fig Tart, and More

July 25, 2018 by Karen Solomon

Ready to try something extravagant with your cacao nib brewed coffee? Come and see us at the SF Valencia street cafe for Chef Lisa Vega‘s baked goods featuring summer’s best fruit paired with chocolate.

Say hello to the fig tart with balsamic caramel, honey ganache, and crisp honeycomb.

Round like a bicycle wheel and named for a well-known French bike race route, meet the Paris-Brest pastry with hazelnut praline cream and chocolate ganache.

Ready for spooning, the chocolate pannacotta with rich tahini, nutty sesame soil, and tangy stone fruit is a contrast in tangy and sweet.

Don’t let the muffin shape fool you. This is our old-fashioned coffee cake with Camino Verde chocolate, bright cherries, and cocoa nib nut streusel.