Welcome to Bouche Chocolate
We're so excited to introduce Bouche Chocolate and invite you to follow our adventures in artisinal chocolate making. Our journey began February 2021 in our home kitchen. After some experimenting, we produced our very first bar of chocolate on March 18th. We've come a long way since then, learning from the other bean to bar chocolate brands we've had the good fortune to discover along the way.
We're Kate and Ric. We've been together since 2006 and we love chocolate! Our goal for Bouche is to produce delicious chocolate bars that are also sustainable and ethical. We source our beans from growers who use environmentally sustainable practices and are paid a living wage. We turn them into incredible chocolate by carefully roasting to bring out the unique flavours of the beans, and grinding in small batches to finely tuned recipes. We wrap our bars in our own hand crafted, paper based, sustainable packaging and postage boxes.
Our chocolate is currently only available to our lucky friends and family, who have volunteered to be taste testers while we're learning our craft. You can read all about what we're doing at our blog, and if you'd like to find out when it's available to buy, please follow us on social media using the links below.
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Togo Kekeli
We had the opportunity to try some beans from Togo, grown by a cooperative of farmers at Mount Agou. These beans have a light, creamy and sweet flavour. You can read more about them at Silva Cacao...
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Costa Esmeraldas
For our first foray into fine flavour cocoa we chose Costa Esmeraldas beans from Ecuador. As soon as they arrived we could tell they were different to the beans we'd been using before. They smelled amazing before we'd even opened the package, and we were very excited to start making chocolate with them....
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Our first beans
For our first chocolate, we ordered some beans from Peru from the internet. There was very little information about them, but they were all we could find that could be bought in small quantities, which seemed ideal for learning with. We soon learned that to make quality chocolate, you need quality ingredients, and unfortunately for us, these beans just weren't very good. On the plus side, we were able to have a go at chocolate making without spending a fortune, and we weren't stuck with an endless supply of poor beans....
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Learning to make chocolate
We are at the very beginning of our chocolate making journey and I'm sure we'll learn a lot along the way, but for now, this is our process....
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Batch 14 - Another Christmas
As we needed this batch to be ready in time for Christmas gifts again, we stuck with our usual 70% bar with 10% cocoa butter....
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Batch 13 - Ready for Christmas
As we needed this batch to be ready in time for Christmas gifts, we stuck with our usual 70% bar with 10% cocoa butter....
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Batch 11 - The Coffee Roaster
We went back to the 10% cocoa butter for this batch, so we used:...
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Batch 10 - Less cocoa butter
For the first time, we tried a different ratio. We stuck with 70% bars, but with only 5% cocoa butter instead of 10%....
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Batch 9 - A hotter roast
Again, we stuck with the 70% bars with 10% cocoa butter to compare with the previous bars:...
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Batch 8 - Exciting new beans
For our first batch with these new beans, we stuck with the 70% bars with 10% cocoa butter to compare with the previous bars:...
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Batch 7 - Best Batch Yet
For our final batch with these beans, we stuck with the 70% bars with 10% cocoa butter:...
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Batch 6 - Bad Beans
Attempting to replicate the ruined batch 5, we used the same ratios for a 70% batch with 10% added cocoa butter:...
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Batch 5 - A Disaster!
Sticking with 70% dark chocolate with 10% additional cocoa butter so that our batches are comparable, we used:...
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Batch 4 - A Single Stage Roast
As we’re still experimenting with the roasting, we went for another 70% batch with 10% cocoa butter:...
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Batch 3 - A Hotter Roast
Sticking with the 70% with 10% cocoa butter, so that the bars are comparable with the previous batches, we used:...
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Batch 2 - Improvements
We’re sticking with the 70% dark so that this batch is comparable to our first attempt, and sticking with the 10% cocoa butter. This is what we put in batch 2:...
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Batch 1 - Learning to Make Chocolate
We’re making a 70% dark bar for our first attempt, so after roasting and peeling the nibs, we weighed them out and added the remaining ingredients in the required ratio. We opted for adding 10% cocoa butter to make sure the chocolate would be easy to work with....
We want you to enjoy chocolate as much as we do. Tap on these icons and follow us on social media to watch our adventure unfold, learn about the other brands we discover and think are interesting, and be the first to hear when our own bars are for sale.
We're about to temper this chocolate and set it into lovely shiny bars . This is what it looks like before we start. The patterns are caused by the fat separating from the rest of the chocolate. Tempering mixes it back in and locks it into a stable state so that it won't separate like this in the bar. #chocolatemaking #untemperedchocolate #temperingchocolate #chocolate #weekendproject
It's been a long time since our kitchen smelled this good. We're making chocolate again! These are beans from Guatemala and I can already tell they're going to be delicious when they're finished bars. #chocolatemaking #beantobar #guatemalancocoa #chocolatemakers #cocoabeans #melanger #chocolatekitchen
We've got equipment, ingredients, a dedicated chocolate making space, and a long weekend at home coming up. Will we finally get around to making a batch of chocolate? #chocolatemakers #chocolatemakingequipment #chocolatemakingstation #melangeur #cocoabeans #cocoabutter #neverenoughtime
We tried some different origins from Firetree. They are mostly quite light, subtle flavours rather than dark and chocolatey, but there's a surprising range of tasting notes across the origins and sometimes within a single bar. #chocolatetasting #firetreechocolate #craftchocolate #beantobar #chocolatestash #tastingnotes #chocolate
So this happened... #newchocolateequipment #melanger #melangeur #chocolatemakingequipment #chocolaterefiner #takingoverthekitchen #chocolatekitchen
Our Christmas batch was the first time we made chocolate at our new chocolate making station. We forgot to take photos showing the actual workspace though. Next time... #chocolatemaking #cocoabeans #cocoabutter #chocolatemakingequipment #roastingcocoabeans #makingchocolate #chocolatemakingstation
We made mini jars of chocolate drops for Christmas presents this year. We think they're really cute! #chocolatedrops #chocolatechips #chocolatemaking #handmade #christmaspresents #chocolatemakers #finallymadesomechocolate
The chocolate cupboard is well stocked at the moment. We've got Bullion, Tosier and Willie's in there. How long do you think this will last us, and how much do you think Kate will let Ric have? #chocolatestash #craftchocolate #bullionchocolate #tosierchocolate #williescacao #chocoholic