The following is part of a serialized story, Everyone Thinks I Dream of Chocolate. You can find the first chapter here.
Dipped Confectionary was the first thing I learned how to make. It was almost 40 percent of Lou’s inventory and also the easiest to make. If you couldn’t do this, you couldn’t work with the production team.
The concept was simple enough: dip things in chocolate. This could be as simple as a marshmallow, cookie, or graham cracker. Yet, I quickly learned that even something like this had nuance in the craftsmanship. We didn’t have an assembly line of machines controlled by an army of workers. We had 2 employees stationed at stainless steel tables.
Still, Dick used to work as a mechanic. His history working with cars and his appreciation of the history of Ford industries resulted in him running the place like a factory. Each of these items had different weights and sizes, therefore a different technique.
The marshmallow was light. I needed to quickly drown and douse it in the glass bowl full of melted chocolate, then bring it out. It had to stand on the fork, preferably the larger side facing up. I was careful not to have the treat tip onto its side or fall off the fork. While the marshmallow balanced on the metal teeth, I tapped on the fork on the edge of the glass bowl . Each time I did, heavy globs of chocolate would drain back into the bowl, between the teeth of the fork in heavy drops.
At first, it did remind me of the chocolate waterfalls in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory but not for too long. Chocolate wasn’t so much a liquid. It was thicker, less likely to splash than splatter. It was like paint, the way it was thick on any surface, gravity having a harder time to drag it down to the earth. When it did, it didn’t so much slither like rain drops. Rather, it took it’s time in a drawl. It had a personality like southern royalty, taking its sweet time, not stopping or speeding up for anyone or anything.
It was then that I also learned that chocolate was picky about its lifestyle. If it was a person, it would be the type to retire in a temperate climate, away from the heat and sweat of places like Florida. Such environments gave chocolate a spotty, chalky look. In the industry, they call it blooming. It’s like looking at the sweaty pits of a person living in a swamp. It doesn’t effect the taste, which was still good. However, it wasn’t nice to look at. Lou always said that in her shop, the presentation was always just as important.
The way it was described to me, blooming was a result of the sugar crystals in the chocolate being inconsistently distributed in its composition. This could be due to a variety of factors, such as moisture in the atmosphere. To combat this, chocolate was heated to the right temperature, which would reset the position of the sugar crystals in chocolate so it was more evenly spaced in its composition.
You would think that chocolate would do well in colder climates but you would only be half-right. True, a slightly cooler environment kept the chocolate well. We often stuck the trays of dipped confectionery in the fridge or freezer to speed up the drying process. If they stayed in there too long, however, the chocolate is bound to crack. Again, presentation was important.
I had to keep all of this in mind as I tapped the chocolate off the marshmallow. If I tapped too hard, the marshmallow might tip off the fork, back into the bowl. Tip too softly and I was “taking too much time” as Dick would say.
Finally, I had to slide the marshmallow on to the tray. During my early days, this was the worst part. It was easy to have the marshmallow tip over, resulting in a frustrating mess of me trying to tip the mellow back over without leaving any marks on the chocolate (again, presentation). My first several trays of marshmallows had as much chocolate on the waxy, baking paper as it did marshmallow.
Jimmy used to try and help me but of course, he had his own assignments and quotas to meet. To him, I was just the new kid, one who had never worked a “real job”, let alone full-time. It was easy for him to be annoyed so I tried to ask only the most necessary questions.
Kai, the other full time worker, was also consistently annoyed at my questions. Or so I thought. At the very least, her face was never much for emotive expression. I chalked it up to having to work full-time while raising 4 kids.
As the weeks and months went by, I got the balance of the marshmallow, right. My original technique involved tapping away the chocolate with rapid, soft taps. Then, like a martial artist learning to control my flow of energy, I learned to do several quick taps that had just the right amount of power without having the marshmallow fly across the room. I learned to use the marshmallows’ natural stickiness as a way to have it stick to the baking paper. This acted as like a piece of sticky tack, softly anchored to the baking sheet as I slowly dragged out the fork underneath.
I think back on it now and despite my lack of practice in over a year and a half, I think I can still do it. The craftsmanship is baked into me, trained into my muscle memory. How else could I recreate these feelings into words if not for a strong sense of ownership to the craft. This confidence in the description of both the product and technique comes from 2 years of practice. Yet, it wasn’t like that when I first started the production team. I distinctly remember the constant need to scream…
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7. The Old Town Mill
Danger Wonka 