Joseph's Signature Egg Shaped Truffles

In 1983, Audrey Ryan and Joseph Schmidt left their pastry chef jobs to start a “cottage” business in their home kitchen. They wanted to bake European-style pastries like petit fours that were hard to find in the US and sell them to local gourmet shops.  As an after thought, they added Belgian chocolate truffles to round out their selection. 

 Within two months the chocolate creations had taken off and they were busier than they had ever imagined they could be. Baked goods were soon dropped from production. Interestingly, Audrey was the one with formal chocolate training, but it was Schmidt who fell in love with the medium. Although Joseph was trained as a baker and not as a maitre chocolate, he soon realized that his special talent was in sculpting and developing new techniques with chocolate…  one his earliest and most famous being his signature egg shaped truffles which you are receiving this month.

Within an industry known for following century old chocolate traditions, Joseph Schmidt is clearly a maverick. Unfamiliar with chocolate traditions, he experimented freely.  “In Europe, everyone learns from a master and follows it like a bible, but by not having any formal training, I didn’t see any restrictions over what I could do.”

Schmidt fell in love with the medium A Million Pounds of Belgian Chocolate A Year

Your box of truffles is from Joseph's spring collection, the box is designed by Audrey Ryan, (this sounds like a fashion show) and includes the following flavors in milk chocolate…

Baileys
Speckled Blue Espresso
Cappuccino
Speckled Grand Marnier
Champagne
Jamaican Rum
Speckled Amaretto
Hawaiian Coconut
Peanut Butter
Praline
Speckled Raspberry
Strawberry Brandy

Would you rather we had sent you Joseph's famous alligator?

Who is Antoine LeBlanc?

Why of course, he is none other than one of nine known Albino Alligators, and he has become quite a celeb! Antoine (I love his name… it goes well with Jude, don’t you think.) travels around to be exhibited at Zoos. Last year when he was at the San Francisco Zoo, Joseph created this life-sized masterpiece in honor of Antoine's extraordinary beauty.  I can honestly say I would love to nibble on an alligator's leg!

The people who came to see both of the Antoines could also purchase personal sized Chocolate Antoines, and the proceeds were donated to the San Francisco Zoo. Besides being an awesome chocolate sculptor, Joseph Schmidt is generous man as well who enjoys his life thoroughly.

Antoine LeBlanc is pure white with bright skyblue eyes. And most of the time, he holds court at the New Orleans' Audubon Zoo with his two other white buddies, Hannan and Shulte. These guys are Leucistic, like white tigers… they have pigmented eyes, but no pigment in their skin. Actually Leucism is quite rare. Usually albino animals and humans are completely white, but the tiny visible blood vessels in each iris make their eyes look pinkish yellow.

These Bad Boys inherited a genetic mutation of a protein called tyrosine. This protein helps to manufacture melanin (the pigment that gives color to skin). Their parents may have looked like regular old alligators, but both parents would have needed to carry a recessive gene for that trait.

Of course Antoine and his friends need to wear lots of sun screen, and they really stand out for predators in the wild… does any other animal besides humans really eat alligators? But for Antoine Blanc and his buddies this defect pays the rent on an enormously royal suite, and their outrageously popularity has enabled them to travel the world to boot!

Schmidt's Achievements

Along with earning the reputation as the “Rodin of Chocolate” and achieving local celebrity status, Joseph has received many awards and numerous acknowledgments within the industry.

1992   Awarded the Antonin Careme Medal from the Western Chefs Association

1993    Distinguished Visiting Chef at Johnson & Wales University

1993   Honored with membership in the Honorable Order of the Golden Torque

1993    Honored with membership of the Chaine Des Rotisseurs

1994   Honored by the California State Senate with a Certificate of Recognition June 5,1994 designated as Joseph Schmidt Day in California

1996   Honorary Degree from Johnson & Wales University on

May 05, 1996,Doctor of Culinary Arts, Honoris Causa

 

Special commissions have included…

The Eiffel Tower for the French Ambassador

A 25 pound cable car for the Queen of England

White dove for Nelson Mandela

Giant panda for Prince Philip and the World Wildlife Organization

Chocolate California state bear for a banquet hosted by then-Governor Pete Wilson

An anniversary present for President Reagan commissioned by Nancy Reagan

Gift for Mikhail Gorbachev

Chocolate pandas for Mayor Feinstein's trip to China

His largest creation to date was in 1992 when he designed a Christmas exhibit entitled the “Chocolate Celebration,” filling 14,000 feet in the lobby of One Market Plaza, San Francisco.  The project consisted of 14 different themes using 10,000 lbs. of chocolate. Included in the exhibit was a full-sized chocolate table with a Christmas feast, a skillfully decorated 3-1/2 foot chocolate tree, a Victorian side table complete with top hat, gloves and cane (all in chocolate), a Dresden toy chest overflowing with toy sculptures, an alpine village, and a 12 foot high pear tree.  Joseph completed the massive display in less than three months!

Photographs of his work have adorned the cover of Manufacturing Confectioner eight times. His work has also been covered in numerous newspapers and magazines including the Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, San Diego Sun Times, San Francisco Examiner, Toronto Star, Japanese magazines Pronto and Axis, German travel magazines, and the Italian Confectioner to name but a few.

Each chocolate color is applied in reverse to the mold and allowed to harden before the next color is added

Joseph has been a constant source of human interest stories for the television media. CNN has covered him five times Internationally, and every month there is a local comment or profile on network programming that reaches large audiences.

Humming bird and flowers on Joseph's tree

Work is Play for Joseph Schmidt

His early experiments with bowls also gave him the opportunity to discover the malleable qualities of chocolate.  “Chocolate is the most fun material in the food industries,” he says.  “It gets soft quickly, you play with it, and in a few minutes, it's hard as a rock.” Joseph must have had fun creating Mickey for Disney. I certainly hope all of these sculptures get eaten, since they are all made with the best of Belgium chocolate!

Like a kid turned loose in a chocolate factory, Schmidt lets his imagination soar. He demonstrates his true artistry through the amazing detail in inspiration begs for his development into new horizons of the chocolate world.

European truffle is basically a lump of chocolate with cocoa modeled after the French mushroom truffle, says Audrey. Joseph decided that the American public would accept a different look.  “Americans say, ‘Show me something beautiful and I’ll try it.’ I figured an egg would be a very natural, elegant shape.”

“We didn’t have any packaging for the new truffles so Joseph started developing these wonderful bowls out of chocolate,” says Ryan. Working with dark, milk, and white chocolates and food dyes, Schmidt created colorful lotus-flower shaped bowls that were as smooth and delicate as porcelain. 

Stunning, intriguing and meticulously crafted… his edible bowls stopped shoppers in their tracks! Audrey Ryan has been equally busy designing and handcrafted packaging. One reason they decided to create special packaging was some of the delicate chocolate designs were not shipping well.

Today Ryan's hand-made, hand-painted boxes, produced in India, the Philippines and Mexico, are as sought after as the candies inside. Here again, they both broke away from European chocolate traditions.

Audrey Ryan is often asked to autograph the boxes… they are becoming collectibles! Joseph's Life In Three Paragraphs

Joseph Schmidt was born in 1939, in Jerusalem to Viennese parents. His career began as an apprentice aboard the Zimline passenger ship line, where he trained with European chefs, and developed his natural talent for the confectionery side of culinary arts.

With a yearning for travel and discovery, he immigrated to the United States in his early 20's.  More training at a Manhattan pastry shop lasted for six years. Then Joseph gave in to his Wanderlust and he found himself visiting San Francisco, now his hometown.

While working at Fantasia Confections for 11 years he met his future partner, Audrey Ryan. Her European training in confections and chocolate provided a foundation for them to develop their own business.

What about white chocolate?

White Chocolate is an Aberration like Moby Dick and Antoine LeBlanc

According to the lexicon you can find on our website,  http://www.chocolatemonthclub.com/pastfaqs.htm

After World War I, White Chocolate was introduced by the Swiss. It is more expensive to produce than dark chocolate since it contains much more cocoa butter. The cocoa butter gives White Chocolate a subtle hint of chocolaty taste. It is combined with sugar, butterfat, milk solids, lecithin and other flavorings. It contains no chocolate liquor and gets its ivory color from the cocoa butter.

According to FDA standards, real chocolate must contain chocolate liquor (the solid that results from finely grinding cocoa bean nibs). For years, The U.S. barred manufacturers from calling this product "chocolate" as it is called in Europe, and so it may be labeled confectionery coating or summer coating. If the "white chocolate" looks bright white, not ivory, it probably doesn’t contain cocoa butter. They may have substituted a mixture of other vegetable fat.

To make white chocolate, chocolate liquor is pumped into hydraulic presses weighing up to 25 tons, and when the pressure is applied, about 80% of the cocoa butter is removed. The fat drains away through metallic screens as a yellow liquid, and then is collected for use in chocolate manufacturing. Cocoa butter, unique among vegetable fats, is a solid at normal room temperature and melts at 89 to 93 °F… just below body temperature.

Cocoa Butter Can Be Kept For Years Without Spoiling

 

Q:  Where does Chocolate come from, Jude? Is it true that it grows on trees?!

A:  You bet it does!! The cocoa tree grows in tropical climates where it is consistently warm and very humid. Cocoa beans, which are the main ingredient of chocolate, are seeds found within the cocoa tree's fruit pods. After harvest, the cocoa beans are first fermented, then dried, then roasted or grilled, and finally cleaned and ground down before the cocoa liquor is extracted. Gary, for a more detailed description of this cultivation of cocoa tress and process of creating chocolate, see ChocolateBytes. And Time Line… it's a fascinating and succinct history of chocolate, covering over 3000 years! http://www.chocolatemonthclub.com/pastfaqs.htm