Saskatoon chocolatiers making edible art and nutritional options

Two chocolatiers in Saskatoon are stripping the guilt from eating cocoa treats by marketing them as works of art and nutritionally-dense foods.

'Delicious art'

At River Layne Chocolate Couture, a lavender and lemon chocolate is painted in a whimsical fashion, reminiscent of a field of flowers, while the chai vanilla bean has a striking copper luster dust design.

"Let it melt in your mouth. That's how you get the most flavour," said owner Faye Moffatt.

Moffatt hand paints each bonbon's design using coloured cocoa butter.

"People want something unique. They appreciate the artistic part of it before they even bite into [the chocolate]."

Making artisan chocolate is a labour-intensive process. It can take Moffatt three days to make a single batch.

She first paints the designs on the mould.

"I try and match some of the designs to the flavours; for others, I try to be artistic and play and have fun."

Next, the chocolate is poured. She uses the finest quality chocolate available, all imported from France and Belgium.

Once it sets, she pours one of 17 flavours, before the two-step finishing process, which includes a River Layne stamp on the bottom.

The filling is all cream ganache-based, which means the texture won't feel grainy.

"It's really delicious art," she said.

Moffatt, who grew up on a farm near North Battleford, Sask., shared a sweet ritual with her dad. Every Christmas, they made chocolates to give away as gifts.

"It was always a really fun thing that I remember doing as a kid."

Fast forward to her university years: while studying economics and finance, she kept making chocolate as a hobby. It was so good, friends encouraged her to expand.

Moffatt began River Layne in her home during a maternity leave (she has two children, aged two and four) in 2016.

Word spread. Her home kitchen was quickly inadequate to meet demand. Last year, she decided to quit her job as a senior market analyst at Cameco to become a chocolatier full-time. She opened her storefront in April.

River Layne's chocolates don't contain preservatives; mass produced chocolates do in order to extend shelf life. Moffatt recommends customers eat her chocolates within four weeks.

"They're not going to last forever. They're going to get dry and crumbly and won't taste as good. So, eat them fresh."

Healthy chocolate?

What began as fun passion project for two then-university students, quickly evolved into Saskatoon's famous raw chocolatiers: Those Girls at the Market.

Sisters Julianna and Ying Tan both have backgrounds in fitness and nutritional counselling. They'd always given their chocolate recipe to clients — the same recipe they use today.

They say it's surprising how healthy chocolate can be in your everyday diet.

"Whenever we hear chocolate we associate it more with candy bars," said Julianna, "whereas cocoa is very dense in nutrients."

Dark chocolate can be a great choice, but it often contains added waxes, white sugar and filler oils.

"If a dark chocolate has any milk fat in it, it actually blocks the absorption of a lot of the good stuff in there," said Julianna. "Make sure you read the ingredient labels."

They keep their organic chocolate simple and never add artificial flavours or colouring. There's just three ingredients: cocoa paste (the raw cocoa bean), cocao butter (the oil that comes from the cocoa bean) and a touch of maple syrup.

To add flavour, they use the organic whole ingredient or pure essential oils (like peppermint in the mint chocolate).

The sisters opened their Saskatoon Farmers' Market booth in 2014, thinking it would be a summer passion project. They sold out of all their chocolate that first Saturday.

"We stayed up all night making chocolate so that we could come back to the market on Sunday. We sold out in two hours, and thought, 'What have we got ourselves into?'"

Since then, the sisters' chocolate has grown in popularity — enough that Julianna has made it her full-time job.

"Every day I look forward to getting up and making chocolate. It's just such a cool gig to have. I feel really grateful that I'm able to do this every day with my sister."