446: Kasey McCaslin on Making Craft Chocolate.
Grinding out award winning chocolate.
Kasey is one of the creators of Stone Grindz Chocolate, a small-batch company driven by quality and craft. She is a self-taught chocolateer, with a background in nutrition who specializes in small batch, single origin craft chocolate and sources cacao from all over the world, giving customers a glimpse and taste from different growing regions. Her free time is spent playing in her garden, painting, and hanging out with her adorable pup, Finnley.
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In This Podcast:
Early influences helped Kasey McCaslin develop a love for food and making things, and that eventually led her to try making small batch chocolate to sell at the farmers market. From there she has gone on to develop recipes that have earned her several awards and she shares about the steps and care she takes to make her internationally inspired flavors.
Listen in and learn about:
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- Early influences that helped her develop a love for food and making things
- Trying different foods to sell at the Farmers Market
- Getting hooked on making chocolate, and starting in her mother’s kitchen
- Chocolate is from a fruit that looks like a gourd
- The steps she takes to get and prepare the cacao and make the chocolate
- Working through the chocolate process to get the different results
- Adding flavors and tempering the chocolate
- Different regions have such different flavors and how that influences her cooking decisions
- A collaboration in the works?
- What a small batch is and why that is special
- Awards that her chocolate have earned
- How her background in nutrition lead her here and helped her
- Starting a small business and selling at the Farmers Market
- How to reach StoneGrindz and pick up some of her chocolate
- Some of her favorite chocolates
- Local Farmers Markets that she can be found at and where you can taste her chocolates
As well as:
Her failure – She does not really consider anything as a failure – only as learning opportunities
Her success – Having the courage to start her own business, and finding her own voice and passion
Her drive – Learning new things!
Her advice – Just do it – Just start!
Kasey’s Book recommendations:
The Signature of All Things: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert
How to reach Kasey:
Website: stonegrindz.com
Facebook: @StoneGrindz
UrbanFarm.org/stonegrindz
Thank you to LaCrosse Boots for sponsoring this episode
LaCrosse Boots – The go-to boots for big tasks!
Note: You can also find these books mentioned above at one of our favorite local independent bookstores and have the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting a small business.
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