Ken Harper shows off Spindle Whorl, a custom chocolate blend developed in Paris specifically for the university. (submitted photo/VIU)

By Alex Rawnsley

SWEET TOOTH

Custom chocolate blend developed by Nanaimo VIU student & instructor in Paris

Nov 20, 2021 | 6:55 AM

NANAIMO — It’s a blend of flavours never created before and destined never to be replicated.

A partnership between Vancouver Island University’s professional baking and pastry arts program and world renowned Cacao Barry in France has yielded the university’s first ever signature chocolate.

Ken Harper, an instructor in the program, told NanaimoNewsNOW the experience to help create a new, unique flavour was something he’d wanted to do for years.

“Chocolate is a recipe. We are all familiar with the very end product but it absolutely is a recipe. It is a blend of cacao beans, cocoa butter, sugar, the mixing times for these can be as little as four or five hours or over 100 hours.”

Darian Zowtuck won a blind taste-test competition among his fellow students and accompanied Harper to Paris in January 2020.

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Eight rounds of trial and error, tinkering with the formula and sampling their results led to “Spindle Whorl”, a dark chocolate product.

“Many people don’t like dark chocolate because it is too bitter, so we certainly wanted this one to have a refreshing amount of acidity while still having the fruity flavour.”

Bars of the final product are available through the university, while bags of wafers for cooking applications are also on sale.

Money from sales will funnel back into the program and help fund future collaborations with Cacao Barry.

Harper said the process is extremely intricate with a near-endless number of combinations, raw ingredients and additives.

He likened the process of creating a chocolate blend, to winemaking.

“There are different grapes as they grow around the world, they’re going to have different flavours. So a Sauvignon blanc that comes from the Okanagan or from Chile, or Australia or from Europe, they’re the same grape but the wine made from them is certainly going to be dramatically different. It’s the same with cacao.”

The spindle whorl, or suÌsuÌtun, name is a Coast Salish term for a device which brings wool strands together.

It was chosen by VIU Elder-in -Residence Geraldine Manson.

“It was the bringing together of strands and using it as an example of students coming together to make something,” Manson said.

The packaging of the bars and wafers also has a VIU connection, with graphic design graduate Kristen Svendsen designing what customers will see on shelves in the new year, or online through the VIU website.

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