Viktoria Richards Artisan Chocolates

General information

Viktoria Richard's interpretation of traditional recipes and contemporary designs make each of her chocolates truly unique. We prepare each confection using the finest and freshest ingredients without preservatives. Victoria takes great pride in creating one of kind confections that are simply delightful while using only the finest European chocolate. These hand crafted delights make great personal gifts, perfect wedding favors, and exceptional corporate gifts.

The Boxed Classics:
Our initial collection consists of our interpretation of classic flavors. While we do admit to being influenced by the latest Artisan trends in chocolate making in which exotic spices are added to the confections, we find that our customers always appreciate the classics. When we do add exotic spices, the confection has to pass the taste test of our testing panel before we begin to offer it to the public.
We introduce new flavors to our boxed assortment every four months.

The Foundation of Great Chocolate Confections:
Simply put: Great chocolates confections begin with great chocolates. To that end we use only the best Belgian and French Chocolates as the foundation for our confections. The shells or covering (The correct culinary term is couverture) of our molded chocolates are made exclusively with dark chocolate. Why do we use dark chocolate? One simple reason, it is the chocolate that is the healthiest of all the chocolates.
Also while most American’s have a preference for milk-chocolate; we feel that is our mission to educate the consumer. European Dark Chocolates are smoother, and not as bitter as their American counterparts.

Preparation:
Today’s contemporary chocolatier is part Artisan and Scientist! The science of preparing chocolate for use in filled confections and solid confections is referred to as tempering the chocolate. Tempering is the process of melting chocolate, cooling it down, and heating it up again slightly. Basically, it is the raising and lowering the temperature of melted chocolate so that the fat crystals in the cocoa butter stabilize. That’s a simplified scientific explanation. The practical one is that you are simply adjusting the characteristics of the melted chocolate so that it sets up with a nice gloss shine, doesn’t melt in your hands upon contact, has a pleasing texture when eaten, and melts nicely on your tongue.

The Perfect Chocolate:
While it may be said that there is no such thing as the perfect chocolate, We consider chocolate from the top quality Belgian, French and Swiss chocolate manufacturers to be the best foundation for Viktoria Richards Chocolates. We find that our manufacturers have perfected the art of roasting, blending and refining their cacao beans in such a way as to produce chocolate that possesses unique favors and melts on your tongue. The texture of less expensive chocolate will have the grainy and or waxy texture that we are all familiar with from many chocolates. We should point out that there are a number of American chocolate manufacturers who produce quality Premium chocolate.

The Perfect Ganache: (filling)
The essence of great artisan chocolates lies in the creation of fillings that complement the chocolate which surrounds the candy or truffle. Artistic creativity has to be balanced with good taste.
Through months of research, we have developed natural means to enhance our flavors. For example, in our opinion, when someone bits into a great raspberry truffle they should be able to immediately sense the fresh taste the raspberry without encountering the after taste that alcohol often creates.
Our fillings (ganaches) made with either dark or milk chocolate. We have found that certain flavors match better with each respective chocolate.

The Perfect Box:
We believe that each box must contain several pieces of the same flavor. We have all had the experience of opening a box of chocolates, selecting a piece, announcing to our friends that we really enjoyed the one we selected and then have the friend ask, “Is there another one of those in the box?” only to answer “no”. Great artisan chocolates are meant to be experienced by more than just one person.
Viktoria found the perfect chocolate box on one of her trips to Europe. Our box is covered in a fine linen cloth in our signature colors. We encourage our customers keep the box to store things in.

The Perfect Bar, Tile and Bagged Products.
Our assortment includes handmade artisan bars, tiles and bagged nut products. Each of our specialty products are made with the same attention to detail and creativeness that put into our boxed artisan chocolates.

Every order of our chocolates represents our pursuit of the perfect chocolate experience for our customers. “Chocolates Made For You™” isn’t just a business slogan it is our passion!

Sustainability:
While we don’t claim to be ardent environmentalists, we do believe in being responsible and conscious of our businesses impact on society. We purchase our chocolate from manufacturing companies that are members of the World Cocoa Foundation. The manufacturers who are members of this foundation support living wage initiatives for cocoa growers around the globe.