A taste of the precise science and delicate art of making perfect chocolate

12:47pm Friday 29th February 2008

WENSLEYDALE may be best known for its cheese, but now a less likely, though no less loved, naughty nibble is also helping to keep the area on the map - chocolate.

Just as getting cheese absolutely right is an exact science, so chocolate- making requires the skills of the chemist and the physicist in order to reach sweet perfection.

The chocolatier is, of course, an artist too and the Easter creations at the Little Chocolate Shop, in Leyburn, are like cellophanewrapped sculptures and paintings.

Perfectly-shaped eggs come in designs with intricate flower motifs set into their smooth, shiny shells, or there's the immensely difficultto- achieve marble effect, while a line-up of solid bars take customers to exotic destinations such as Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and St Domingo.

The unmistakable smell of chocolate hits you as soon as you enter the Little Chocolate Shop factory, followed closely by a shiver before you become accustomed to the chill.

It is a walk-in-and-buy factory, but large viewing windows also allow visitors to see owner Clare Gardiner and her staff in the pristine kitchen, tapping out trays of chocs or monitoring the flow of white chocolate as it glides sensuously over a machine into a deep, molten pool.

Ms Gardiner, from Winchester, in Hampshire, arrived in the Yorkshire Dales seven years ago after a variety of jobs, from selling bathrooms to checking in ships at Southampton docks.

It was only after responding to her creative side, by taking a diploma in horticulture and running her own gardening business, that she ended up "in chocolate".

"I picked up half a tree, wrenched my shoulder and put my back out, which put paid to any more strenuous gardening," she explained. "I fancied a complete change and heard through friends that the Mill Race Teashop, overlooking Aysgarth Falls, was available.

"I came to have a look as a joke - and ended up buying it on a whim."

She spent the summer stripping the place and putting in a new kitchen, only to be hit by what she describes as "an evil first year" - one of the wettest Augusts on record, the fuel crisis and footand- mouth disease.

The Dales virtually closed for business and, like many others, Ms Gardiner was forced to ask herself if it was worth carrying on.

The upside was that with disaster came diversification grants.

"I began to think what I could do to enhance the teashop and make use of a 12ft cold cube at the bottom of the building. It was either brewing - but I didn't know how to do that - or a bakery, but I didn't have the time. Then somebody suggested handmade chocolates."

Ms Gardiner went to Belgium to learn to be a chocolatier, bought some equipment with a Business Link grant, and set to work making chocolate while visitors watched. Through trial and error she perfected her art - and learned more about the science.

Cocoa butter, the oil of the cocoa bean, comprises six types of polymorphic crystals which are temperature- sensitive and alter in form from molten to set chocolate.

Under a microscope, five of the crystal stages are haphazard and butt into each other; the sixth, or beta, crystals are uniform and, when they contract, they interlock, which gives chocolate its shine and snap.

It's this stage of tempered chocolate that the maker must reach, but the beta crystal only appears at a specific temperature and when movement is added. The movement is usually achieved by stirring the chocolate on a marble slab, while keeping the temperature within two degrees of 27C for white, three degrees of 29C for milk and within four degrees of 31C for dark chocolate.

"You have to cool it at the correct rate. If you don't cool it quickly enough, it goes out of temper," explained Ms Gardiner.

Unless this stable form of chocolate is reached, it will develop bloom', or the dusty covering which people often mistake for chocolate having gone off.

"It takes a year to learn this job properly," added Ms Gardiner.

It's little wonder then, after putting so much into her craft, that it still makes her emotional when she recalls selling out of her first batch within two days.

"It was just so hard and so rewarding when people wanted to buy it," she said, fighting back the tears. The emotion stems from more than the Eureka moment of finally cracking the process; it also signifies the instant when her future opened up before her.

"It was the point at which I knew what to do next. It told me what to do with my future," she explained.

Chocolate has always had the power to generate passion ever since the Maya Indians in what is now Mexico began making a spicy, bitter drink using cocoa beans in about 600AD.

In Ms Gardiner's case, it took her to Leyburn, where new industrial units were being built off Harmby Road. It was a risky step, even though she chose a tiny unit to start with.

"We benefited from getting one of the last brown tourism signs in the area directing people to us. The day it went up, the business took off. Thousands came," said Ms Gardiner.

"I think people were attracted by the mystery of it. Here they were in the Yorkshire Dales and yet there was a factory making chocolate."

They grew out of the unit within eight months, but only moved to their current home next to the Tea Pottery three years ago.

The factory now employs six people and on average turns out 10,000 chocolates a week.

They make 26 different types of pick-and-mix chocolates, from the exotic amaretto square and coconut fleur-de-lis to old favourites like rum truffle and almond praline.

Many are bought by visitors or by mail order, but the company also supplies to local shops Lewis & Cooper and Weeton's, farm shops, cafes and restaurants including the Wensleydale Heifer.

It also makes fudge, marshmallows, nougat and cinder toffee, chunky chocolate and a big bar range as well as four single origin bars sourced from different parts of the world where the type of soil influences the flavour of the cocoa beans.

You'd imagine that chocolate is seasonal - Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day and, of course, Easter - but in fact summer is the busiest time at the factory because it's when the most visitors come.

Visits for schoolchildren are also proving popular - for obvious reasons with the children, but also among teachers as the making of chocolate incorporates history, food technology, science and even literature - think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Joanne Harris' Chocolat.

Despite all the health warnings and worries about obesity in children, with education Ms Gardiner believes the lovely stuff is here to stay. She says: "I don't think we'll ever go off chocolate."

For more information, ring the Little Chocolate Shop, Leyburn Business Park, on 01969-625288, or visit www.thelittlechocolateshop.

co.uk.