Making Chocolates by Hand

                                   

The hand-made process in pictures.

Move your cursor over the images above - move it to the right to scroll forward through the images - move to the left to scroll back through the images - click on any image, wait a moment, to see an enlarged version. Fascinating!

The stages in the process

We use the finest natural ingredients in our classic recipes. The finished chocolates are then extensively tested before release.

Sark cream was the inspiration behind the creation of Caragh Chocolates.

The Sark herds graze on the most lush, rich and unpolluted pasture available and their milk and cream is testament to this. It is rich and pure.

Our chocolates are our cream.

Moulding

To get a very definite moulded shape for some of the chocolates we firstly line rigid moulds with tempered chocolate, this is done by filling the moulds and then emptying them so only a fine layer of chocolate is left. These are then refrigerated until cool and then stacked at room temperature overnight.

The Fillings

We blend cream and liquid glucose into the molten chocolate to create a smooth truffle centre known as a ganache, these are then left overnight to cool and are then whisked at the final stage with the added flavourings to give a lighter texture.

Piping

The blended ganache is then hand piped into the lined moulds ensuring not to overfill. During our run of Milk and Dark chocolate 2,500 individual chocolates are produced and 1,250 of the White. The moulds are finally closed with tempered chocolate and refrigerated overnight until cool.

Demoulding

Once cool, the chocolates are then tapped out and placed in holding boxes, they are then packed into our classic gold ballotin boxes and distributed for sale.

Enrobing

Some of our chocolates are enrobed which means dressing with chocolate. The truffle is rolled by hand and then dipped into tempered chocolate. They are then individually decorated by either drizzling with a contrast chocolate, sprinkled with roasted chopped hazelnuts or wrapped in coloured foil.

Each type of chocolate produced (Dark, White or Milk) is typically a two and a half day process, with up to 5,000 individual chocolates being handmade, packed, boxed and sold every week.