The art of chocolate with Asterism Artisan Chocolate

All right, DK, come on in. We are in the kitchen with Asterism, right? Artisan. Man, I've been practicing. I had one job. I've been practicing Asterism, right? Yes, sir. Asterism artesian chocolate. Funny for you, I'd like to see you say it five times fast. You know what my trick is? I'll let them say it. Serving up beautiful, high quality chocolates from the old train depot in Rochester. Joining us now, the owner, Charles Scott. Charles, how are you, my friend? I'm doing great. Thank you. So this started as a hobby and kind of blossomed into this great business. That's true. Yep. Talk to me about this. So I started in Florida. My mom and I, in my home kitchen, we used what's called a melanger. That grinds your chocolate beans for 48 hours and then you temper it. And so it started as a hobby, moved back to Michigan, back to my hometown, and participated in the Rochester farmer's market where I got a lot of good feedback. So then when a good friend of mine approached me and said, hey, we've got some space for you. Would you like to open up a studio and a shop? I said, yeah, for sure. So I jumped at it. So how are we making chocolate? How do we go about this? So there's multiple ways. It's called tempering. And what that is, it's going to give you the right shine and snap, get the nice sheen that you're going for with your chocolate bar. There's a variety of ways to do it. Today, I'm going to do it with the machine. It's a little more streamlined. So how I go about that is once the chocolate's ready, I'm going to go ahead and ladle some right into the mold here. What do you do to get it ready? You're just mixing that thing? Yeah. So this machine does that tempering process automatically, which makes it a little bit easier. I can take a spoon of that right now. Yeah. Oh, it is tasty for sure. And then we're going to tap out the air bubbles here. Level it out. Yeah, absolutely. And then we're going to go ahead and scrape off the excess. Now, this excess is still fine. So it's sort of like sourdough. We're going to go ahead and use this for a future batch. But for now, we'll take this off to the side. We're going to let this cool for about 15 minutes. Right on. And then after about 15 minutes, you end up with these right here. Wow. And that's your finished product right there. No kidding. That easy? Yes, sir. I say that easy. Kind of easy for me. It's probably a little bit more complicated. It took a little practice, some good training, and it's definitely more of a science than it is an art. So, Charles, you mentioned the snap of chocolate. What is it about the snap? So how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? As far as we can go. So with chocolate, if you don't temper it properly, the crystal structure of it is going to be, it's going to melt in your hand. It's going to be kind of soft and pliable. What you're going for with a nice high quality chocolate is that snap. You know, if you'd like to snap one of these bars, you can actually get an audio. Can we do that? Go for it. Can we all do it? Go for it, please. By all means. And I'd love it if you guys would try some too. I think you guys are going to like this chocolate. Oh, did you hear that? That's what you're going for. This is great. You've got a lot going on here. What's this? Well, that's one of our newest products. It's called a gender reveal egg. So if you'd be so kind as to smash that open, you're going to find a pink and blue bomb. Are you sure for a smash up? Yeah, go ahead and give it a good whack. All right, ready? Back up. Back up. Now, this is not somebody's really real gender reveal. This is if you want to do a gender reveal. Exactly. That's right. All right, hold on. You get one shot of this. You got one job. Hit it hard. It's twins. It's a boy and a girl. And we'll love both equally. Yeah. Talk to me about what is that? The red there. So we call these our art deco bars. Yep, it's made with the same chocolate, which is cacao, cane sugar, vanilla bean and sunflower. Thank you. I can't thank you. No preservatives, no extracts. It's a really fine quality Swiss chocolate that I start with. And yeah, these are specifically for Valentine's. However, I think chocolate can be loved and shared throughout the whole year or so. You want to eat that, Derek? We're being instructed to eat the bonbon. Yeah, try the bonbons. They are delicious. Oh, boy. What's the temperature in the oven once you have it all leveled out? So this guy, the high temperature is 119. The working temperature is actually going to be closer between 88 and 90 degrees. That's for a dark chocolate specifically. Milk chocolate's a little bit cooler. Working temp on a milk chocolate's about 86. That's so good. What's in the middle of that? Like a raspberry? Which one do you have? I don't know. The blue one is a lemon honey ganache and then the pink one is a mango with little vanilla cookie. Dang. Oh, yeah. And this little green grass here, that's coconut? Yeah, that's coconut. Yep. Yep. I try to have as much of it be edible. Yeah, go for it. It's a sweet coconut. You know, you can't eat the basket, though. You know it's good when we know we're supposed to be asking you questions, but I just want to keep eating chocolate, right? Where do people find you? How do we get in touch with you? Well, you can find us on my website. It's asterismchocolate.com. You could give a phone call or a text to that number or just stop in our shop at the Rochester train depot. That's at 203 East University in Rochester and that is area code 48307. That's just so cool. I've heard dark chocolate is good for you. You know, it can be. Absolutely. It's got some sugar in it, but pure cacao actually can be a health supplement. You can grind it up, put it in a protein shake. Go for the health supplement. Better than shredded lettuce these days. Well, man, let's not go there. But yeah, so the cacao is actually medicinal in its 100% form. It's got antioxidants and yeah, it's definitely. Asterismchocolate.com. We'll be right back. Thank you, guys.