shooting for the chocolate moon
the meh days when we find ourselves over it, and a what to do with those leftover holiday bars meltdown
Hello again from the small batch chocolate-splattered universe of the Next Batch, a newsletter aimed at the craft of bean to bar and source of support + community for craft chocolate makers. Everything here is shared through the insights of a working chocolate maker’s perspective, who also had a crazy idea to start a chocolate school.
A chocolate shot of courage, please
We’ve just had a full moon, known as the Full Wolf moon, the first full moon of a new year. Astrologers call it a cosmic shot of courage, a nod to the brave packs that gather and howl at this time of year. According to the zodiac, this full moon is perfect for finding or establishing our public voice.
Honestly, we could all probably use a shot of cosmic courage these days. I walked in the woods the morning of the moon, and though I didn’t actually howl (although I live in a place where if I had, it wouldn’t be seen as odd :) I did focus on what I hope the year ahead will hold.
I’ve come to realize we can love making bean to bar, but also feel very tired of it. My epiphany? One doesn’t rule out the other.
Honesty might be my worst fault, but I am also an optimist, which is a weird combo. I can be logical but hopeful. Rational but a believer in following an idea that I have no certainty about. This is why, if someone asked me last year How’s that broken leg coming? I would answer, It’s almost healed! Not, It’s perfect now, thank you!
The honesty bit: not healed yet. The optimist in me: almost, as in, I believe it will be soon, and while believing in that, be penciling in on my calendar a five mile hike the day after my brace was coming off.
Likewise, if someone asks Is it hard to learn how to make chocolate? I will offer encouragement with a side of reality; as tempting as it is as a chocolate school founder to follow the lead of the marketing-bs-at-all-costs folks, I can’t sugarcoat it. When I get those emails and DM’s I say this:
Learning to make chocolate isn’t hard, but the more you learn you’ll begin to realize how much there is to it.
If you’re already in the doing-of-it, you know it is like baking a cake. There’s a process, and not just a bunch of ingredients dumped willy-nilly. There’s time. There’s guess work. And yes, we get to have it and eat it too. But it’s not just about the lovely chocolate frosting: the layers are the cake. Which can be dry, under or over-baked, not what we were expecting when it doesn’t work out right.
This says two things: anyone can do it (optimism) and that this only happens by sticking with it the deeper and deeper into it we go (honesty). I know this from experience, from each time I’ve faced some new challenge (lost count), from the continuing shifts in craft chocolate (higher and higher cocoa prices, shortages, etc), from talking with fellow chocolate makers, and from watching excited newbies gear up, buy all the equipment, hit a roadblock, then quit.
There are many legit reasons for deciding to stop; as many reasons to call it quits as there are to start in the first place, each yay or nay unique to each maker: finances, health, family, things we can’t control or foresee (enter pandemics and global supply chain meltdowns and climate change etc) which all play a role in our chocolate livelihoods.
Or maybe one day we just won’t be into it. Maybe, some other direction will tug on us. Maybe at some point making chocolate will have run its course for us. So yes, makers come and they go.
That’s not what I’m talking about here.
What I’m saying is there’s just as much need (maybe more) to face up to feeling meh about making chocolate, without shame or fear or worry that we’ve lost our path.
Just like the causes for calling it quits for good, there are reasons for when the I love making chocolate dial shifts from bright to dim.
I’ve had days when I felt like a coyote with her leg in a trap: providing something needed, an important piece of the puzzle of the micro environment she’s a part of, even when meandering in a new direction and creating a path for others to follow. Not the biggest in the food chain, but resourceful. Not in the limelight, yet creates impact, and better than that, helpful at ground level where it truly adds up.
That’s the coyote part; what about the trap?
I did what any coyote would do and howled, then began trying to gnaw my leg off. By gnaw I mean create in the way I thought I could make a difference.
Years ago when I was a Grand Canyon river guide the number one question I was asked had nothing to do with how far until camp or how big will the next rapid be or how old are the canyon walls, but
Will it be worth it?
Passengers would ask this when I’d be describing the day’s hike. The Grand Canyon is more than just a river flowing between two very steep, ancient walls: it is created by side canyons that meander and curve down through the strata. As these layers unfold they lead us, when we’re in the depths on the river, through layers of time. Also, to waterfalls, hidden green grottos tucked in the desert, to wonderful, amazing things seen no other way but from the river. My job as a guide was to row and cook, and to help people see things they’d never seen, or imagined seeing.
Only 1800 people get to raft down through the Grand Canyon each month. The earth has over 8 billion people. Now do bean to bar chocolate: how many of us are there?
Of course, these extra hikes while we were on our trip took effort, some with day-long amounts of effort, and even, pushing beyond fears and learning new skills. Inevitably a passenger would ask, wondering if they should fill their water bottle and pack a lunch from the buffet we’d set out for everyone, lace up their hiking shoes and make sure to wear their hat,
Will it be worth it?
I understood why they were asking, and I could empathize with them; we’re humans, and we like to weigh the risks. We prefer to have a sense of what’s ahead, and whether or not we’ll feel any pain, or if it will be incredible enough.
You probably can guess what my answer was, each and every time, and that I would tell them the only truth I knew: that it was worth it to me.
But what you might not know is that, each and every time I answered them, I smiled, because the other truth I knew for certain was what the folks who chose to go were going to say to me when we got there.
The best answer I can offer for the meh days is take a break when we need it, know that the journey will wax and wan, and eventually, get bright again. Or not. And then we decide. On the way we can steer clear of the number one trap it’s easy for small batch to fall into:
of thinking small is somehow not as important (what was the word that factory craft maker recently used?) or as impactful as big.
Bars that did not make it is not the same topic as bars that should have never been wrapped and set out on the shelf for sale. Both are sad facts of being a chocolate maker, one arising from despite crafting our very best, while the other happening due to crafting what we thought was our best, but possibly wasn’t.
As I sat down to write this, cocoa beans are trading at $10,693 per metric ton. You might be thinking — especially if you buy in small increments, or a few bags at a time — that this doesn’t apply to you, but absolutely it does. That it does impact small makers is the reason I keep mentioning it here: this time last year the commodity (market by which cocoa prices are set) was $4,453 per ton.
By December 2024, the price had increased to $10,353 per ton, and now, a month later here we are.
One reason this matters is because wasting cocoa beans and (god forbid) cocoa butter should never be a thing, but now it’s a very expensive thing. By wasting, we can be less-than-careful when sorting, scooping beans, and roasting. We can neglect cleaning the filter(s) on the shop vac that provides the suction for our winnower and our winnows will be poor. We can rush batches, not focus on tempering, scroll our phones while roasting a ruin a load, oh, a zillion ways to slack off and yes, I have been there.
By leftover chocolate I mean bars we lovingly and intentionally crafted, that no one is buying, or maybe the sales fell short of our hopes and we have bars left. A few reasons this can happen:
We may be a small, new maker and not enough people know about us yet. Map’s Oregon Trail bar, circa 2014 (a milk chocolate bar with hazelnut granola as an inclusion) never sold. Not a single bar from the 10 I made and listed on Etsy.
Our pricing might not be in sync with our packaging. This is another conversation we probably should have. Your chocolate can be mind-blowing but the outer aesthetics matter. People buy with their eyes. There’s a fine balance between handcrafted and a bar that looks like your three year-old nephew wrapped it. The form our packaging should be/feel like/look like/the vibe it conveys can only be answered by asking the question, Who is our chocolate for?
Our pricing and packaging might be a marriage made in chocolate heaven but if it wasn’t offered to the people our chocolate is for, the sales can fall short. How we offer/sell our bars is usually via one, or a combination of a few channels. >We have a shop and people walk in. >We set up at markets and people walk up to our booth. >We sell through wholesale accounts and they do the secondary (retail) selling. >We have a website where anyone can order. >We have a mailing list we email when we have bars available. >We sell at a chocolate show or special chocolate events like tastings.
Our bars sell well but we have holiday-themed/flavored bars leftover. This is the category that in many cases is the easiest problem to solve, and the one I’m tackling here. Maybe we made too many, maybe the market was crowded with similar creations, who knows.
First step: If you have a website put those peppermint candy cane, eggnog, and gingerbread bars (and whatever else was from your holiday offerings) on sale.
Next step, if they linger: Inclusion bars meltdown 101
If it’s a one-chocolate bar or bark (no swirls!) and the inclusions are on the back or were stirred in, many bars can be melted, and the inclusions strained out (and thrown away).
The chocolate can be re-used with caveats: if you also added peppermint flavoring, for example, it’s still going to taste like peppermint chocolate. That can be fine if the next bar it becomes re-thinks that flavor pairing. See caveats for allergens etc, below.
If it’s a swirl or multi-batch bar, you can melt it but understand that the different batches will blend into one chocolate. The big questions: does it taste good? does the taste make sense? is the color good?
If it’s a bar or bark with nuts or any other allergen inclusion: after melting/straining out the nuts (allergen) you MUST only use the chocolate with that same allergen, and of course, clearly note the allergen on the label. For example: your dark chocolate gingerbread bar had gingerbread spices with chopped caramelized almonds inside; even after sieving out the almonds the chocolate has allergen potential.
Sugarwork inclusions, like toffee bits: you can try to remelt and re-use the chocolate, but know that in melting the chocolate the toffee will likely also melt, and can’t be strained out.
Crumb made with butter or cocoa butter: problematic AF, as the binder (the butter/cb) will melt too.
Please feel free to share your own creative efforts, questions and any obstacles, or a-ha moments you’ve had. Thank you for being here!
I am not a small batch craft chocolate maker, but these recommendations are fantastic! Especially now with the price of cacao. Forward thinkers will always thrive.