This Thanksgiving week I've been working on the upcoming December collection of chocolates and thought I'd share a few photos of one part of the process.
Trying new flavors or new variations with every collection means I'm always on the hunt for interesting ingredients and the best sources for the highest quality. That often leads to small, family farms.
With December coming up I needed some really great nuts for making praline, that combination of finely milled nuts, caramelized sugar, and chocolate. So down the rabbit hole I went to discover three sources, learning more in the process.
Did you know that some of the most flavorful pecans come from native trees growing in the river bottomlands of Missouri? I did not. Just native, non-hybrid pecan trees growing in a location they have been for centuries.
For almonds, I found a family with 1,400 almond trees practicing organic, regenerative agriculture in California. They apply some very cool practices to enhance topsoil and maintain biodiversity.
After spending a few days traveling through hazelnut orchards in the Willamette Valley of Oregon this summer, I located a family farm near Junction City and got some of their 2025 crop.
Best thing about all three of these nuts: the flavor is terrific, and when finely ground for making gianduja, the smell is intoxicatingly good.
Gianduja has a pretty simple ingredient list—nuts, caramelized sugar, chocolate—but it's all about the process and the quality of those ingredients. Here are a few illustrations:
Caramelizing sugar can feel a bit intimidating, but repetition takes care of that. I always go for deep amber color. When the sugar cools it is rock hard, so what to do?
Put a mat over it and whack the heck out of it with a wooden mallet!
I love the look of the resulting shards of caramel.
Into the food processor it goes. (Yes, I may have recently indulged my new equipment habit with a commercial stainless steel food processor.)
And presto! The caramelized sugar is a powder!
The caramelized sugar and ground nuts (in a 1:1 ratio) go into a melangeur, a stone grinding mill that can refine particle size down to 20 microns.
The drum of the melangeur rotates and two stone wheels run along the stone base grinding the combination of nuts and caramel to this remarkably smooth texture. The smell is wonderful; the taste is sublime.
No photos of the next step yet—adding the chocolate—as that's coming up in the next day or two. But imagine that luscious nut butter combined with exceptional heirloom chocolate!
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