Last week the temperature in New Hampshire actually reached 90 degrees. In May! It's back to more usual weather now, but chocolates are clearly over until fall. So, it's time for a little reflection on the season.
Just now, it occurs to me to organize the review as "10 Things I Cared About"—in no particular order! Here's the first 5—Part 1. Part 2 will come next week.
1. Collaboration
Making chocolates as a sole chocolatier is a rather solitary enterprise. (That theme will come up again in other entries, too.) It's a big switch after a prior career with the National Park Service that was very partnership-oriented. That's why I find it so rewarding to collaborate on some of my chocolate collections, like with my friend Liza Donnelly. Liza's creativity is remarkable, and I love the All We Need is Love theme we chose this year. Of course, all that creativity leads one to say "heck, let's do 12 different designs rather than just 6!"
Despite doubling the work, it was wonderful to translate a dozen diverse faces onto chocolate. Seeing them over and over, hundreds of times in the process, each one developed a little back story that ultimately influenced the flavors I chose for the chocolates.
2. Affirmation
It's always nice to know people appreciate your work. It's particularly rewarding when they share that appreciation with others (as so many of you do by sharing my chocolates with your friends and family). Over a couple of weeks this spring some unanticipated sharing went a little viral.
First, my friends at Ecole Chocolat posted a story on Instagram about the Spring Migration collection. Then author, chef, and food blogger David Lebovitz did the same. A week or two later, a nice story came out in the Concord Monitor and was then rerun in at least one other New Hampshire paper. Of course all of this happened after the Spring Migrationchocolates had sold out. But it's wonderful to have a lot of new followers. Thank you!
3. Story-telling
A chocolatier friend said to me recently, "if anyone is doing a more informative insert with their chocolates, I don't know who they are." I do end up spending a good bit of time on the booklets that go with each collection, but it feels important.
Story-telling—through the image on the chocolates, their flavors, the booklet—is what interests me. That's what turns a box of chocolates into an experience of a place or theme. It's what makes it meaningful to create.
4. The Right Tools
When starting out one often makes do with starter tools. Over the past couple of years, my life has gotten so much easier with the right tools. This season saw the debut of two more, and one improved one, and wow, what a difference!
My new enrober cuts the time for coating ganache with chocolate by at least 50% over hand dipping each filling. That reduces the time for enrobing a single ganache flavor for one collection from 6-8 hours to under 3. Multiply that by six flavors and it's a lot of time.
Any new tool has a learning curve, and I'm still on it with this one, but no complaints.
I make the chocolate designs using stencils. Ever since cutting the first ones with an X-acto knife and getting numb fingers as a result, I've used a machine. For two years that was a Cricut, which was good but frustrating whenever I tried to do something too fine. This year, a Titan cutter debuted with the All We Need is Love chocolates and it is so much better. The difference in detail is remarkable. More good designs ahead!
Spraying cocoa butter through the stencils is a somewhat messy enterprise. The challenge is controlling the overspray. Without an effective spray booth, it's easy to end up with a mist of cocoa butter filling the room. I expanded my spray booth this spring, and while not perfect, it's definitely an improvement. Plus, I can do larger sheets of designs as well. Now, if I could only control my impulses to use too many stencils/colors per design.
5. Amazing Cream
Ganache, which I use for many of my chocolates, is typically a combination of chocolate and cream, with sugars and flavors usually added. You can get heavy cream most anywhere, but it's often ultra-pasteurized for long-life and stabilized with gums or carrageenan.
I'm incredibly lucky to live two miles from Contoocook Creamery at Bohanan Farm, a fifth generation small dairy farm here in town. When I'm making chocolates I give Jamie Robertson a call to ask for some cream. A few days later I go over and pick up a 2.5 gallon bag of the freshest pasteurized cream you can find. Nothing but pure cream. Often, I also pick up a second bag and drive it down to my friends at Dancing Lion Chocolate in Manchester, a wonderful collaboration between fellow chocolatiers.
Set aside eight minutes and watch this lovely video about Contoocook Creamery and the philosophy they embrace. You'll be glad you eat chocolates containing their cream.
That's all for Part 1. Tune in next week for Part 2!
Thanks for reading.
Jonathan Doherty
Owner & Chocolatier