Under an especially dark Heber City sky, 13 guests gathered around the long wooden table at Ritual Chocolate’s headquarters for a truffle-making class.
Ritual Chocolate team members Kim Berg and Cristina Fritzche led the simple, 45-minute experience, each setting prepared with an unfolded box, four gold wrappers, two paper bowls and a paper plate, reminiscent of a kids crafting session. The one child seemed right at home.
Berg and Fritzche began with a history lesson on Ritual Chocolate and its artisanal chocolate-making process, as well as some concerning facts about mainstream chocolate brands, like Hershey’s.
“The two co-founders wanted to make ethical, really well-sourced and interesting-tasting chocolate,” Fritzche said. “So one of the main things that’s different between when you go get a bar at the grocery store from a regular brand, it’s always going to taste the same.”
Those producers achieve uniformity by over-roasting their cacao beans, said Berg, which also cooks out all the best nutrients and tasting notes of the natural cacao. Plus, their chocolate has tons of other additives.
“Here at Ritual, our number one ingredient will always be cacao. Our lowest percentage in our bars is, at the moment, 46%,” Berg said. “In the U.S., to legally call something a chocolate bar, they require it to be at least 11% cocoa or cacao. So, can you guess what percentage of Hershey’s chocolate bar is?”
Cacao is expensive, especially as climate change affects those regions’ harvests, so some brands have begun labeling their products as “chocolate candy” or “chocolate-style confection,” Berg said.
But the benefits of single-origin chocolate bars are worth the cost for Ritual. Since they started in 2010, they’ve established relationships with cacao farmers in areas like Ecuador, Madagascar and the Philippines. Those producers grow the trees, which produce pods full of creamy, white cacao fruit. Inside the fruit is the bean, so farmers will ferment the fruit, dry it, then harvest the beans, Fritzche said.
Ritual Chocolate purchases and receives these raw cacao beans, and that’s where their work begins of roasting, winnowing, grinding and refining the cacao into what we know as chocolate, Fritzche explained.
She turned on a small Roku TV on one side of the room to show a few video clips of the Ritual Chocolate machines, such as their granite stone melangeurs and a vintage three-roll mill refiner.
Together, the two attempted to answer a few questions about the difference between cacao and cocoa.
“I will say, none of us at Ritual are necessarily the highest level of chocolate ‘experts,’” Berg said with air quotes, “but what we do have here is a massive passion and dedication for what we do. … What I found in our market and our industry quite a bit is that a lot of the professionals that we come in contact with are just like us. They’re just normal people who have fallen so madly in love with amazing chocolate and sharing that with the world that we just keep it going.”
Berg worked in the postal service for seven years before joining the Ritual team, now serving as its operations manager. And while she never went to culinary school, Berg also works on recipe development, like the vegan ganache used for the evening’s truffle class.
On to the truffle making, Berg showed everyone how to fold their boxes for the finished truffles, and Fritzche filled them with glittery gold stuffing. Then the guests made quick work of scooping the pre-made ganache, rolling them into sticky, imperfect balls, coating them in toppings like dried raspberries or cocoa powder or toasted coconut and placing them in the cups provided.
And that’s it. Super easy. Some guests shopped for bars, such as a family visiting from Texas with a flight home the next day. Some got to work on their truffles then and there, the rich chocolate surprisingly rich and filling. Fritzche passed out pretzels as an added snack.
Ritual Chocolate usually hosts a hands-on experience once a month, and they’ll start back up in the new year. To stay up to date on their upcoming events, visit ritualchocolate.com. Check out the recipe below to try making truffles at home:
Hand-Rolled Chocolate Truffles
Ingredients:
- 8 oz ground or finely chopped chocolate (Berg recommends using a box of the Hygge drinking chocolate)
- 8 oz heavy cream or coconut milk
- 4 tbsp butter or vegan butter
- Coating of choice (cocoa powder, chopped roasted nuts, powdered sugar, sprinkles, toasted coconut, freeze-dried crushed fruit, cacao nibs)
Making the ganache:
- Add your chocolate of choice to a mixing bowl and set aside
- In a saucepan, gently heat your heavy cream or coconut milk with your butter over medium-low heat, stirring constantly so the butter blends well into the liquid as it melts.
- Once your liquid comes to a low simmer, take it off the heat and pour it over your chocolate then let it rest for one minute to allow the chocolate to melt
- Whisk together, it will take a little while for it to all come together, but don’t panic — just keep whisking until you have a smooth and fully blended ganache.
- Cover with plastic wrap, making sure it makes full contact with the surface of the ganache to prevent condensation and a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator overnight until it is fully set up.
Making the truffles:
- Set up your coating station. Add your coating to a bowl, enough for the truffles to roll around in.
- Using a small cookie scoop or a spoon, scrape it over the surface of your ganache until you have your desired amount for your truffle.
- Roll the ganache gently between your palms to create a sphere until the surface is moist and sticky.
- Drop it into the bowl with your coating, and shake and swirl the bowl allowing the truffle to roll around, covering the entire surface of the ganache.
- Repeat these steps until you have plenty of truffles and most importantly. Enjoy!
Ganache and truffles will last for seven days if stored in the refrigerator; truffles are best enjoyed at room temperature.