Opened just over a month ago, Cacau Dourado wishes to explore the fruits from the Cerrado to make inclusions.
Despite being originally from Minas Gerais, chocolate maker Maísa Araújo has lived in Goiânia for four years and is starting her career with a small Bean to Bar vegan chocolates brand, namely Cacau Dourado.
The brand was launched on august 20, but experiments with cocoa and chocolate have been around for some time. Maísa is a geographer and environmental consultant and has always been in love with cocoa, thanks to a Pará Parazinho tree, planted in the middle of the family property, for over 40 years, in the Vale do Aço region, Dionísio, Minas Gerais. “As a child, I was always amazed by that tree that bears fruit all year long. I always wanted to do something with cocoa and when my children were born, living in another city, I decided to start with chocolate,” she says.
Maísa tells that, as soon as she had the idea, she started searching the internet, buying books and trying some Bean to Bar chocolates. She discovered La Bar Chocolates, from Brasilia, Mestiço, Luisa Abram read the story here, and began to do her own experiments. “But here in Goiânia, it is very difficult to find Bean to Bar chocolates. I have only recently been able to find out about Luisa Abram’s. And even so, in no more than few Sugar Loaf stores. This is my ultimate difficulty,” she says.
Starting Cacau Dourado
Last year, in June, when she went to visit the family farm, she brought the almonds and began the experiments. “I took the seeds, let them dry in the sun and brought them toast. But, until then, I didn’t know how to generate the mass”, she confesses. She bought her first melanger, began testing, and the results pleased friends and the family.
“The production is still very small; I think mine is the second smallest chocolate factory in the world”, alluding to the Luisa Abram brand. It is producing 30 kg per month and has already bought two more melangers, a Spectra 11, imported from the US, for R$ 4,000. The other one is a Brazilian brand, BTM, with a capacity of 6.5 kg.
Vegan Chocolate
Currently, her bars are produced with almonds from southern Bahia and Linhares, in Espírito Santo. And, due to a health issue that her children had with lactose intolerance, she decided that her bars would be vegan: there are four definite formulations, the only one that is not vegan is 41% cow’s milk. The other three are 53% coconut milk, 78% demerara sugar and 82% coconut sugar.
“There are some more radical vegans who do not consume any product containing traces of milk, including the entire raw material chain. I am not at this level yet, but I have already bought other machines precisely to achieve this degree of purity,” she explains.
Either way, her recipes require that the chocolate remain in the melanger for at least 48 hours, and then rest for at least two months to mature. Only then will they go to the molding phase.
As she does everything on her own, from researching to buying almonds, creating recipes, producing, packing and shipping, she is overloaded and failed to complete the brand website in time.
“By 2020, we will go online with online sales, also developing a line with pasta such as peanut butter and bean to bar cocoa cream, chestnut cream and tripling the bar chocolate line. I crave to take advantage of the diversity of the Brazilian Cerrado to create recipes with fruit inclusion. I’ve been testing one with rosemary and orange and I’m looking for raw material powder with Pequi, Mangaba, Umbu, Cagaita etc. This last one is very interesting. It is a delicious fruit, and if it is green, it has a slight acidity. You just can’t eat it ripe, because then, as its name implies, it can cause intestinal breakdown.”
Cocoa farming
And taking advantage of family ownership, she is starting to plan a small cocoa crop. “We still do not know what it will be like, whether Cabruca, with cocoa planted in the shade of the forest or in the agroforestry system, intercropped with rubber trees and bananas, for example. Then, we will become a Tree to Bar brand, with great pride. Thus, I’ll be able to finally unite my two professions,” she concludes.
Cacau Dourado chocolates can be ordered at @cacaudouradochocolate, or at Eleve Empório, avenida José Cleto 263, Palmares or in Acorde, at Rua Manoel Diniz 34, both in Minas Gerais.
