IN FOCUS:
CADENCE CHOCOLATES

— April 2017 Issue Free Content —

Chocolate Love Songs to a Place and Time

by Eric Battersby

Cadence Chocolates was in the back of Melissa Santos’ mind before it ever had a name. She grew up in Kent, WA, about 30 minutes south of Seattle, and her first chocolate memory?

“Toll House chocolate chips, straight from the bag, when they were supposed to be heading into cookie dough.”

Back in the day (at ten years old), ninety percent of what Melissa baked came straight from a box. Maybe she took those thin, cardboard shortcuts out of convenience, or perhaps made-from-scratch baking simply felt too daunting, but as a kid, she didn’t care in the slightest, because baking was, and still is, pure magic. To go from a package in the pantry and “just add eggs” to warm, gooey brownies out of the oven… yes, that’s a miracle.

In the background, her parents offered two different support mechanisms for her boxed culinary adventures. Her mom provided the notion that baking was doable, while her dad was much more about baking experiments. What can we do with this… and this… and this…

“He’d probably say I’m selling family secrets if I told you the kinds of things he came up with, so I’ll keep it to myself.”

Melissa does offer some hints, however, like how her father layered one dessert with another, trying to solve the problem of how to suspend this thing that’s a different consistency within this other thing. His process of tasting as you go (never mind that there are raw eggs in it) is something she’s seen in a lot of restaurant chefs – but she never knew it would be something she did for a living.

Her parents were all about enriching activities. She played soccer, t-ball, and softball through the town’s parks department. The whole family camped during the summers (the impetus of a s’mores love affair), and in addition, Melissa, her oldest brother, and her mom all played piano.

“I remember thinking as a kid, ‘I’ll play charity benefit concerts when I’m older.’ Very noble. No one ever expected the sweets to stick.”

Turned out that making lemon bars and brownies with her mom for piano recitals, however, pointed more to her future than the black and white keys ever did.

The Importance of Tasting

A Singapore Swing

Melissa went on to study biology at the University of Puget Sound. While America teetered on a recession, she didn’t have a solid plan for a career when she graduated. She dabbled in modeling for bit during college, and when her Seattle agency reported that some Singapore agencies were inquiring about her, Melissa’s life suddenly took an adventurous turn. With no job prospects lined up, why not go far, far away from home to start her adult life?

“I was only supposed to stay for 3 months and ended up in Southeast Asia for 3 years. About a year and a half in is when I realized I wanted to pursue baking and pastry.”

Modeling, however, didn’t quite take care of everything, so she went back into the kitchen to see if that simmering passion might indeed lead the way to her true path. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight.

“My first internship was at the 2am:Dessert Bar in Holland Village. I hated it,” Melissa reflects back to her humble beginning. She’d never worked in a kitchen before, and found herself not only a difficult student, but a slow one at that.

Cadence Chocolates Ganache, basic ingredients

“I remember my coworker Robert telling me to “do it faster” when I was cutting something. Just a half-whispered piece of advice as he was passing by… It was infuriating at the time, but it was true.”

Robert turned out to be a great friend, a big brother even, as the two also became yoga partners, taking part in that exercise to save their bodies from all the aches and pains from standing on their feet all night at the restaurant.

“There were a handful of people like that in my restaurant upbringing; you learn from, respect, and rely on those people, twelve hours a day. They’re mentors, they’re family.”

Getting Iggy With It

For her next turn in Singapore she worked at one of its top restaurants, Iggy’s, where she learned from Andres Lara and Britt Walling.

Andres taught Melissa about working clean, how to dance, and how to make your ingredients dance. Not dancing in the traditional sense, but “the dance” of moving around the kitchen with the same core group of people, where comfort and familiarity creates an in-sync flow… yes, a dance.

As Melissa puts it, “You could be plating several desserts and each has five components; with the best colleagues, you don’t even need to say words. The cake goes here, then another hand moves in to place the sauce, now here’s the fruit, and the micro cilantro is there before you know it.”

Andre also taught her to make her desserts dance. “The components don’t just assemble themselves, it has to look windblown and organic. Look at Andre’s desserts, you’ll understand.”

Ganache sets 24 hours

“Andres taught me a lot of foundation. He was my first pastry chef and at the time, there were three of us assistants. I didn’t realize how special our situation was until I left; we were well-staffed, had an excellent leader, and were spoiled for equipment. Because we had such a staffed-up department, it gave us time to experiment and play. It was the first time I got to develop a plated dessert and put it on the menu.”

He gave Melissa and her kitchen cohorts the space to dream up a dessert and then see it through. A far cry from just a decade earlier making desserts out of a box, Melissa found herself in an extravagant Singapore restaurant, truly “playing” in a kitchen for the first time. With the seed planted, chocolate now beamed on the distant horizon, but not quite yet…

Back in the USA

After a year at Iggy’s, she returned to the states in 2012, working in San Francisco and Oakland at Daniel Patterson’s restaurants Coi and Plum, respectively, and under chefs Nick Muncy & Matt Tinder. A year or so later she jumped over to Commis, where she worked under Joshua Meiseman.

“Joshua taught me about ‘big hands for tiny work.’ I remember we made these mignardise that were like tiny Butterfingers, the size of my two thumbnails end-to-end. I had to dip them in an icing, then put three pieces of black lava salt in the upper right corner. I do not have delicate fingers… it took practice to get the speed and consistency.”

Joshua also taught her about unusual ingredients, specifically how to pull the best flavors and textures out of them, and perhaps even more importantly, how to paint with restraint. How do you used colored cocoa butter to make this beautiful without making it garrish? Where do the unlikely ingredients of burdock root, beer, and young redwood needles earn a place in dessert?

After four years of fine dining and woeful paychecks (from Singapore to Oakland), she decided she would rather start a business doing the thing she loved most. Thanks to amazing mentors like Andres and Joshua, Melissa’s chocolate horizon now loomed much, much closer, and she left her pastry chef days behind with a grateful heart.

“Andres and Joshua are simply the best. There’s something mesmerizing about watching someone incredibly skilled do work. I remember seeing Andres tempering chocolate on the marble table… Joshua scraping molds. It takes time and repetition to do chocolate fast and clean, seeing practiced hands never gets old.”

She counts herself incredibly lucky to have found people not only good at what they do, but good at teaching as well. The two masters taught Melissa patience, and to keep tasting… and trying.

“They spurred in me a desire to make something beautiful that also tastes amazing.”

Chocolate horizon, so close…

Online Opening

After leaving her pastry chef career behind, Melissa spent a year working in production kitchens to test the waters. During that time, she feels Cadence Chocolates finally came to be.

“I knew I needed to leave restaurants – the lifestyle for the compensation didn’t make sense, but I knew I loved making chocolates. I also felt like I needed to get something started before my 20’s were over, so there was a sense of ‘If not now, then when?’ that drove me toward starting a business.”

Cadence Five Piece Boxes

Not long after, she posted her first “Friends and Family Chocolate Sale” on January 28th, 2015, from her boyfriend’s couch in San Francisco, CA. Twenty-five 6-piece boxes, just to Facebook friends.

Now, it’s cadencechocolates.com, and you can order Melissa’s unique chocolate creations 24/7.

Digging Into Ingredients

Cadence works with chocolate from Guittard Chocolate Company, primarily a blend from South America, the South Pacific, and West Africa. As Melissa proudly proclaims, “Guittard sources fairly traded beans from family farms implementing sustainable practices.”

Barley Dark Chocolate

She incorporates organic ingredients (peanut butter, rosemary, and black sesame tahini, to name a few) into her ganaches, and as of Earth Day 2016, Cadence only uses organic dairy and organic coconut cream. Melissa’s goal is clear – be transparent and increase the use of organic ingredients and sustainable practices as the business grows.

Organic dairy is one thing, but Melissa also strives to make the best vegan bonbons around. “Whether it’s carefully blending organic nut and seed butters with dark chocolate or infusing organic coconut cream with a myriad of flavors, you’ll never miss dairy with Cadence Chocolates.”

She’s also experimenting with sugar-free chocolate and with chocolate darker than her current 61% dark workhorse.

Past Adventures, Flavorful Chocolates

What makes Cadence Chocolates so unique? Everything is done by hand, to order, and most importantly, it’s crafted with echoes of flavors from Melissa’s own travels.

Singapore, holds a wealth of interesting drinks. Barley tea with winter melon… fresh pressed sugarcane juice… chrysanthemum tea… Learning from Melissa, you feel as if nearly every single ingredient can lead you somewhere else. “Chrysanthemum tea actually goes brilliantly with milk chocolate.” Who knew?

“[Our] flavors typically come from memories, love songs to a place and time.”

Melissa Santos

Cadence Chocolates

Negroni, Fernet & Coffee, Whiskey Marshmallow, Minneola Grand Marnier, Turkish Tea & Cookies (mostly retired, as it’s quite labor intensive), Roasted Barley, Apple Pie… “flavors typically come from memories, love songs to a place and time.”

“I remember the first time I had a Negroni. I was in my friend Dan’s kitchen in Singapore, after I had a bad breakup and he’d put a roof over my head. It was bitter, brilliant, almost pithy, and packed a punch. It was everything I wanted and needed in a cocktail, and it’s still my favorite.”

Now her Negroni chocolate serves as a top seller, right alongside her Thai tea flavor. Negroni is “divisive”, you either love it or hate it. It’s boozy and bitter, which marry and shine through the dark chocolate.

Thai tea is made with milk chocolate and a little dark chocolate. “People don’t expect it to taste as much like the drink as it does.”

Chocolate Philosophy

Melissa’s chocolate philosophy hits from two different angles. First off, to put it simply, it must taste good before it looks good. Despite her stellar talents in the presentation department, Melissa knows that Cadence won’t reach the stratosphere by putting beauty before taste.

“There’s no sense in putting lipstick on a pig in this kitchen. You develop the flavors, take care with the texture, and then you can make it beautiful.”

Cadence Negroni Chocolate

The second angle, one we’ve rarely discussed here at Chocolate Connoisseur is to savor promptly.

“My family has a habit of hanging onto things that are special. Sure, chocolate is special, but I’ll make you more and it’s never going to taste as good as it does when it’s fresh. That’s why we only produce to order or for holidays. It’s tough, telling people that they can only buy what might be extra from a production run unless they place a large enough order, but it’s how it has to be done…”

So understand, “savor promptly” isn’t just some jingly catchphrase – it’s an actual mantra. Melissa refuses to compromise on quality, and perhaps the biggest reason is that she completely understands the number one payoff as a chocolate maker –

“When people taste it and light up… It’s fun getting to do something clever and have people enjoy it.”

Her “savor promptly” philosophy greatly increases the odds of that moment when faces light up from her chocolate.

Accolades and the Future

Cadence recently attended the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon for the first time, and actually placed an impressive five times, including a gold award for milk chocolate. That’s a great sign and some solid encouragement for Melissa as she moves forward with her future plans.

“We want to emphasize events and gifting, because making something fresh to order for a client is the best experience all around. We’re letting the company grow organically and don’t have big plans of going worldwide, or national for that matter. We just want to make something good and true.”

Melissa makes ganache…

As she chases a new chocolate horizon, Melissa’s push for vegan will likely remind you of Hadara Slok from Rawclates (see our January 2017 issue).

She’s passionate about creating most of Cadence’s flavors as vegan.

“I think a lot of people turn up their noses at the notion of vegan and I thank my time in fine dining restaurants for pushing me to create desserts for allergies and aversions.

I love dairy, but I also love to catch people off-guard; the disbelief around ‘this is vegan?!’ is pretty fun to witness.”

The best part, however? She loves surprising, and of course delighting, a vegan who thought they’d miss out on dessert at an event.

The moment that person realizes the incredible-looking dessert in front of them is also vegan, and a grateful, hungry smile takes over… that’s the moment Melissa lives for.