Here at Pembertons we have a very rustic and authentic history, it really is quite charming actually! It all started with a tattered old cookbook, bound with string and bulging with old, tried and tested confectionery recipes. This cookbook was 'Granny Pembertons'!.
'Granny Pemberton', or Alice Pemberton as she was known had a real passion for all things sweet and dedicated her spare time to her passion. Over the years she added, and tweaked recipes for sweets, chocolates, fudges etc . These are the recipes used at Pembertons today.
The cook book was found years later by Alice's grandson, Alan Jones. Alan had a real mind for business and a real eye for potential creative business opportunities! He and his wife Elizabeth were really inspired by the Victorian wisdom. Elizabeth travelled to Belgium to further her knowledge and feed their passion even further. She trained with some of the best chocolatiers and returned bursting at the seams with ideas. At the time Alan and Elizabeth were living in a small house in Nottingham and Elizabeth started making chocolates on a very small scale, literally on the kitchen table. These chocolates were mainly for weddings and small shops. Alan then decided a move to Wales was the best plan of action, and shortly afterwoods they moved to a large working farm in the middle of the Welsh countryside, Llanboidy. Slowly but surelly the old farm buildings were converted, the cattleshed became the factory and the stables became the shop. Soon they started to get a name for themselves and not only opened to the public but started getting some big orders too!
Origionally the tours were very basic. Over the years the sight has been expanded and the creative juices haven't once stopped flowing. Sadly in 2008 Alan lost his battle with cancer, but The Welsh Chocolate Farm lives on in his honour, and between them, his two daughters inherited his vision, flare and spontaneity.
Spontaneity
Many of the recipes have been modified slightly over the years, slight tweaks here and there, but the basic recipes remain the same, Granny Pembertons would be proud.
The business is now moving to the next generations with both daughters Emily and Jessica taking active roles within the family business.
"I suppose the idea of making chocolates on an old hill farm – miles from the nearest town – seems a bit silly. All I can say is that it works" said Alan Jones.
The Welsh Chocolate farm has earned a solid reputation for exceptional chocolates, as the string of top awards testifies.
The years have seen the farm buildings lovingly restored to a variety of chocolate workshops and each year thousands of visitors turn up for a factory visit and to buy some of the 200 odd products turned out with care by the dedicated team at Pembertons.
Chocolate lovers from all over Britain and the rest of the world for that matter clamour for Pemberton’s chocolates because they’re 'Excellent in every way'. Everybody claims they use only the best ingredients….here at Pemberton’s we actually do!
The Jones family describe their chocolates as "at the top of the 'non-snob' market". "We try to make chocolates that people actually enjoy. We hear so much about chocolate with 70 or 80 percent cocoa solids. That doesn’t mean it's what people want. The unsung magic ingredient of chocolate is cocoa butter which melts on the tongue at one degree below body heat and which, when sweetened with subtlety and flavoured with skill, makes a most memorable eating experience" said Alan Jones.
When it comes to chocolate, it's hard work keeping up with the Joneses.
The Story of Chocolate
Once the cocoa pods have been harvested from the trees and the beans removed, the beans are then fermented for approx a week, dried in the sun and then shipped to the chocolate maker. The chocolate maker starts by slow roasting the beans to enhance all the natural flavours and undertones of the bean.
Different beans from different places have different qualities and flavours, so they are often sorted and blended to produce a distinctive mix.
Next, the roasted beans are winnowed. Winnowing removes the meat (also known as the nib) of the cocoa bean from its shell. Seeds are fermented and dried before they are roasted.
Once roasted, winnowed, and blended, the nibs are ground, and the ground nibs form a viscous liquid called chocolate liquor (the word liquor has nothing to do with alcohol -- that's just what it's called). This liquor is bitter and dry. Nothing like the chocolate as we know it, this is because it is yet to be sweetened, this comes later in the process. Although it's pretty nasty in this state, it is possible to aquire a taste for it!
All seeds contain some amount of fat, and cocoa beans are no different. However, cocoa beans are half fat, which is why the ground nibs form a liquid. If you have ever ground up peanuts to make real peanut butter, that is similar -- real peanut butter is a thick liquid. The difference between peanut oil and cocoa oil is that peanut oil is liquid at room temperature while cocoa oil is a solid up to about 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
You can do two different things with chocolate liquor. You can pour it into a mold and let it cool and solidify. This is unsweetened chocolate. Or you can press it in a hydraulic press to squeeze out the fat. When you do that, what you are left with is a dry cake of the ground cocoa bean solids and cocoa butter (useful in everything from tanning products to white chocolate). If you grind up the cake, you have cocoa powder. You can buy both unsweetened chocolate (baking chocolate) and pure cocoa powder at the grocery store. What you are buying is ground cocoa beans, either with or without the cocoa butter.
Making Chocolate
So far, we've taken the seeds of a tree, roasted them and ground them up. Now the process of making the chocolate we eat can begin, and it takes a lot of talent, fortunately Pemberton's have all the experience needed to produce the finest chocolate. The chocolate is sweetened and processed and.. delicious!
Discs of dark chocolate can be used for baking or can be eaten just as they are. Many people are partial to Plain or dark chocolate, as it's sweet but not overly sweet with bitter undertones!
Primary processing has taken place. The chocolate is a viscose, sweet, creamy product. Once primary processing has ended secondary processing can begin.
Secondary processing is where the chocolate is melted down to a workable liquid. The temperature it has to be melted at varies between white, milk and dark chocolate. Hitting this temperature and keeping the chocolate at this workable temperature is called tempering. The chocolate is kept in large metal heated drums called 'Tempering kettles'. Chocolate is a very fragile product to work with, if the temperature is too high the chocolate can burn. It goes dry and crumbly and the 'melt in the mouth' characteristics that we love in chocolate are gone. It can also be underheated and not set correctly. If the temperature is even a degree incorrect the chocolate will set with a chocolate 'bloom'. Chocolate bloom is when the chocolate has a slightly mottled effect. It looks unattractive and many believe that this look makes the chocolate inedible. This is not the case it is simply that the chocolate has set at the wrong temperature and the fat has seperated slightly.
Below are the three basic steps of chocolate making:
- Adding Ingredients - The chocolate that we eat contains sugar, other flavours (like vanilla) and often milk (in milk chocolate). Although, milk cannot actually be used as it would curdle, so milk powder is used. The chocolate maker adds these ingredients according to their secret recipe... and we all have one!
- Conching - A special machine is used to massage the chocolate in order to blend the ingredients together and smooth it out. Conching can take anywhere from two to six days.
- Tempering - Tempering is a carefully controlled heating process, tempering is "a process where the chocolate is slowly heated, then slowly cooled, allowing the cocoa butter molecules to solidify in an orderly fashion." Without tempering, the chocolate does not harden properly or the cocoa butter separates out (as cream separates from milk).
Additionally we make all our own fillings, the recipes are kept in Elizabeths' very own cook book which is kept under lock and key. These recipes have been developed over the years using real cream, butter and an assortment of alchohols. Here at Pembertons we pride ourselves on the fact that we don't use any additives to enhance the shelf life of our chocolates. The only shelf life enhancer we use is Alchohol.. and no one has minded yet!
Types of Chocolate
Baking Chocolate - Pure cocoa liquor with nothing added.
Cocoa Powder - Cocoa bean solids; cocoa liquor pressed to remove the cocoa butter.
Semisweet Chocolate - Pure cocoa liquor with extra cocoa butter and some sugar.
Milk Chocolate - Pure cocoa liquor with extra cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids; more milk than chocolate liquor.
White Chocolate - Cocoa butter with sugar and milk; no cocoa bean solids.